THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF. CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


INAUGURATION    OF   PRESIDENT   WASHINGTON 


A  TOUR 

AROUND   NEW   YORK 

AND 

MY    SUMMER    ACRE 


BEING 

THE  RECREATIONS 

OF 


fIDr,  ffeliy 


BY  JOHN    FLAVEL   MINES,  LL.D. 

\\ 


"  Nothing  is  so  really  new  as  that  which  is  old'^ 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER   &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

1893 


Copyright,  1892,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


' 


TO 
MY  DEAR   SON 

MASTER  FELIX  OLDBOY,  JR. 

WHO  HAS  BEEN  THE  PLEASANT  COMPANION   OF  THESE  ROADSIDE 

RAMBLES  AND  DAYS  OF  SUNSHINE,  AND  TO  WHOM  I  COMMIT 

THE    PLEASANT   TASK    OF   WRITING    UP    FORTY    YEARS 

HENCE   THE   SCENES    HIS    EYES    HAVE    WITNESSED 

IN  OUR  WALKS  THROUGH  THE  CITY  WHICH 

WE    BOTH    HAVE    LEARNED    TO    LOVE 

THIS  VOLUME 

Is   DcDicateO 


£282718 


PREFATORY   NOTE 


THE  sketches  gathered  in  this  volume  were  written  by  the 
late  Colonel  John  F.  Mines  for  newspaper  publication,  and 
appeared,  first,  the  "Tour,"  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post, 
and  afterwards  the  "  Summer  Acre,"  in  the  New  York  Com- 
mercial Advertiser.  From  their  beginning  they  had  singular 
good-fortune  in  engaging  public  attention  and  exciting  in- 
terest, and  many  requests  for  preservation  of  them  in  per- 
manent form  were  received  by  their  author  and  his  editors. 
After  the  death  of  Colonel  Mines  the  sketches  were  found 
among  papers  in  possession  of  his  family,  and  are  here 
presented  in  the  order  of  arrangement  which  he  had  in- 
dicated. The  text  remains  after  revision  substantially  as 
it  was  written ;  a  few  passages  have  been  transferred  to  new 
relations  for  the  sake  of  congruity,  a  few  have  been  reduced 
to  foot-notes  ;  duplications  have  been  avoided,  and  some  al- 
lusions to  mere  news  of  the  day  have  been  removed.  The 
passage  on  Governor  Morgan  Lewis,  in  Chapfer  XX.,  is 
taken,  by  kind  permission  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Dix,  from  a  paper 
by  Colonel  Mines  in  a  late  number  of  the  Trinity  Record. 
Editorial  notes  are  marked  by  the  letter  "  L."  The  work  has 
been  enriched  by  many  pictures  of  scenes  referred  to  by  the 
author,  and  further  illustrations  not  directly  called  for  by 
his  text  have  been  introduced,  that  the  volume  may  be  made 


Viii  PREFATORY    NOTE 

more  complete  pictorially ;  all  of  them,  it  is  believed,  will 
be  welcome  to  New  Yorkers  who  find  pleasure  and  pride 
in  the  history  of  their  city.  The  reader  of  these  ingenious 
and  instructive  papers  may  find  it  useful  to  identify  the  time 
of  their  production  as  in  the  years  1886-90  inclusive. 

JAMES  E.  LEARNED. 

NEW  YORK, 

September,  1892. 


CONTENTS 

AROUND   NEW  YORK 

CHAPTER   I 

Suggestions  from  an  Anniversary  Celebration — New  York  near  Half  a 
Century  Ago — A  Reminiscence  of  the  Days  when  Trinity  Church  was 
New — Preachers  and  Laymen  of  a  Past  Generation  .  .  .  Page  i 

CHAPTER    II 

An  Obliterated  Park — Some  Old  Churches — Departed  Glories  of  Varick 
and  Laight  Streets — Mr.  Greenough's  School — Riley's  Museum  Ho. 
tel — The  "  Troop  A"  of  the  "  Forties" 10 

CHAPTER    III 

Columbia  College  as  It  Was  —  A  Commencement  Forty  Years  Ago — 
Riots  that  Cost  Life  —  Landmarks  of  Chelsea — An  Ecclesiastical 
Romance 23 

CHAPTER    IV 

To  Albany  by  Sloop— An  Incident  of  Steamboat  Competition — The 
Romance  of  a  Convict — Genesis  of  Fashionable  Parks — The  "  Pro- 
fessorship of  New  York  " 34 

CHAPTER   V 

Echoes  of  the  Streets— Merchants  of  a  Past  Generation— Solid  Men 
who  Enjoyed  Life — Museum  Days — The  Old  Auctioneers — The 
Heroes  of  Commerce 43 

CHAPTER   VI 

Broadway  in  Simpler  Days — Among  the  Old-time  Theatres — May  Meet- 
ings at  the  Tabernacle— The  First  Sewing-machine—Broadway  Gar- 
dens and  Churches— A  Night  with  Christy's  Minstrels — The  Ravels 
at  Niblo's  .  55 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VII 

The  Poetry  of  Every-day  Life — A  Protest  Against  the  Goth — My  Grand- 
mother's Home — An  Era  Without  Luxuries — Stately  Manners  of  the 
Past Page  73 

CHAPTER   VIII 

Ecclesiastical  Raids  by  Night — Bowery  Village  Methodists — Charlotte 
Temple's  Home — A  Book-store  of  Lang  Syne — Old  Lafayette  Place 
— The  Tragedy  of  Charlotte  Canda — A  Reminder  of  Tweed  .  86 

CHAPTER   IX 

Eccentricities  of  Memory— Queer  Street  Characters — The  Only  Son  of 
a  King — Idioms  of  a  Past  Generation — Old  Volunteer  Firemen — A 
Forgotten  Statesman 98 

CHAPTER   X 

Christmas  in  the  Older  Days— A  Flirtation  Under  the  Mistletoe — Six- 
penny Sleigh-rides — Literature  of  Our  Boyhood— Santa  Claus  in  Our 
Grandmothers'  Homes — Decorating  the  Churches ill 

CHAPTER   XI 

A  Metropolis  of  Strangers — Some  Old  Mansion-houses  on  the  East  Side 
—Characteristics  of  Bowery  Life— Bull's  Head  and  the  Amphitheatre 
—The  Stuyvesant  Pear-tree — A  Haunted  House 124 

CHAPTER   XII 

Our  City  Burial-plots — Illustrious  Dust  and  Ashes — A  Woman's  Fifty 
Years  of  Waiting — Three  Hebrew  Cemeteries— The  Burking  Epi- 
sode—Slaves of  the  Olden  Time 135 

CHAPTER    XIII 

Echoes  of  Sweet  Singers — Old  Theatres  on  Broadway — An  Accidental 
Thoroughfare — Evolution  of  Union  Square — A  Street  that  was  Not 
Opened— History  of  a  Church  Bell 14? 

CHAPTER   XIV 

Summer  Breezes  at  the  Battery — A  Soldier  of  the  Last  Century — Knick- 
erbockers and  their  Homes — An  Old-time  Stroll  up  Broadway  .  161 


CONTENTS  Xi 

CHAPTER   XV 

Life  at  Eighty-seven  Years — Memories  of  Robert  Fulton — What  the 
First  Steamboat  Looked  Like  —  Sunday  in  Greenwich  Village — A 
Primitive  Congregation — Flirting  in  the  Galleries  .  .  .  Page  175 

CHAPTER   XVI 

On  the  East  Side  —  The  Old  Shipping  Merchants — Jacob  Leisler — A 
Paradise  of  Churches — The  Dominie's  Garden — Moral  and  Religious 
Sanity  of  Old  New  York , 184 

CHAPTER   XVII 

When  Harlem  was  a  Village — Fishing  for  flounders — The  Canal  Mania 
— An  Ancient  Toll-bridge — Twenty  Years  After — Mott's  Canal  and 
His  Haven 201 

CHAPTER   XVIII 

The  First  Brass  Band — "  The  Light  Guard  Quickstep  " — General  Train- 
ing-day— A  Falstaffian  Army — Militiamen  in  their  Glory — Our  Crack 
Corps 213 

CHAPTER   XIX 

Colonial  Footprints — Haunts  of  Washington  and  Howe- — Country-seat 
of  Alexander  Hamilton — East  Side  Journeyings — Old  Days  in  York- 
ville  and  Harlem — The  Beekman  Mansion 225 

CHAPTER   XX 

A  Civic  Pantheon  —  First  Blood  of  the  Revolution  —  Merchants  who 
were  Statesmen— The  Disinherited  Daughter — In  an  Old  Tavern  .  242 

CHAPTER   XXI 

Teakettles  as  Modes  of  Motion — Two  Leaves  from  an  Old  Merchant's 
Itinerary  —  Quaker  Nooks  and  Covenanters'  Haunts  —  City  Farm- 
houses— Up  Breakneck  Hill — Harlem  Lane  in  Its  Glory — Summer 
Attractions  of  Manhattan  Streets 259 

CHAPTER   XXII 

The  Ancient  Mill  at  Kingsbridge — Marching  with  Washington — A  Pa- 
troon  in  the  Hay-field— Ghosts  of  Old  Houses — The  Stryker  and 


Xll  CONTENTS 

Hopper   Mansions — Richmond    Hill  —  The   Warren  and    Spencer 
Homesteads— Ancient  Earthworks Page  272 

CHAPTER    XXIII 

Politicians  of  the  Olden  Time — Samuel  Swartwout's  Strange  Career — 
Thurlow  Weed  and  Horatio  Seymour — Statesmen  of  the  New  School 
— Harmony  in  Old  Tammany  Hall 287 

CHAPTER    XXIV 

Public  Opinion  Opposed  to  Banks — Birth  and  Growth  of  the  System 
— The  Yellow-fever  Terror  —  Personal  Reminiscences  —  Origin  of 
Some  New  York  Banks — Circumventing  the  Legislature — Wild-cat 
Banking 297 

CHAPTER    XXV 

Pudding  Rock  —  An  Ancient  School-house — A  Temperance  Hamlet 
gone  Wrong — Landmarks  and  Memories  of  the  New  Parks — Van 
Cortlandt  and  Pelham  Bay — The  Unknown  Land  of  the  Bronx — 
Rural  Scenes  in  a  City's  Boundaries 309 

CHAPTER    XXVI 

Manhattan  Island — Some  Ancient  Homesteads — Work  of  the  Wood- 
man's Axe  —  A  Mystery  of  Dress  and  Architecture  —  Block-houses 
and  Earthworks — A  Sacred  Grove 322 

CHAPTER    XXVII 

An  Unexplored  Region — Traces  of  Cowboys  and  Hessians — Lords  of  the 
Manor — Through  a  Glass  Darkly — Old  Homes  and  Haunts  .  .  336 


CONTENTS  Xiii 

MY    SUMMER    ACRE 

CHAPTER   I 

Felix  Oldboy's  Hot  Weather  Home — On  the  East  River,  Facing  Hell 
Gate — A  Stately  Mansion  of  Seventy-five  Years  Ago — Solitude  in  the 
City Page  349 

CHAPTER    II 

The  Dark  Phantom  which  Dogged  a  Postman's  Feet — A  Garden  Calen- 
dar— Notes  of  the  Farm  Acre 358 

CHAPTER    III 

The  New  World  Venice — Panorama  of  East  River  Islands — A  Lovely 
Water  Journey — An  Old-time  Sheriff  in  his  Home  ....  365 

CHAPTER    IV 

Happiness  in  a  Canal-boat  —  Pulpit  Criticisms — The  Story  of  Ward's 
Island— In  the  Days  of  the  Redcoats 373 

CHAPTER   V 

Manhattan  Birds  and  Fishes — Feathered  Denizens  of  Hell  Gate — Pri- 
meval Haunts  on  the  City's  Islands — A  Matter  of  Piscatorial  Con- 
science   381 

CHAPTER    VI 

The  Battle  Story  of  the  East  River — Monuments  of  Revolutionary 
Days— A  Defeat  at  Randall's  Island— The  Patriotism  that  Clustered 
about  Hell  Gate — Catching  a  Snook 390 

CHAPTER   VII 

Panorama  of  Ancient  East  River  Homes — A  Low  Dutch  Farm-house 
—At  Turtle  Bay  Farm— The  Grove  in  the  Woods— Old  Graves  at 
the  Water-side 403 

CHAPTER   VIII 

The  Hell  Gate  Colony — Glimpses  of  East  River  Homes — St.  James's 
Church — The  Astor  Country-house — Where  Irving  wrote  "Astoria" 
— The  Home  of  Archibald  Gracie — New  York  and  its  Visitors  420 


XIV  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    IX 

Unsolved  Problems  of  Life — The  Old  Post -road  and  its  Hell  Gate 
Branches  —  Homes  of  Merchant  Princes  —  Manhattan's  Biggest 
Tree Page  435 

CHAPTER    X 

A  Glance  at  Harlem — The  Lesson  of  the  Woodpecker — A  Great  Mill- 
pond  that  has  Disappeared — The  Otter  Track  and  Benson's  Creek — 
Grist-mills  on  Third  Avenue — Old  Dutch  Homes  and  Names  .  447 

CHAPTER   XI 

Rambles  Around  Harlem — In  My  School-boy  Days — Early  Settlers  and 
Their  Homes — An  Interior  View — The  Stage-coach  Era — A  Village 
Alderman  of  the  Olden  Time 459 

CHAPTER   XII 

Indian  Raids  and  Massacres  —  A  Roll  of  Honor  —  The  Old  Dutch 
Church— St.  Andrew's  Parish — Days  of  Pestilence  and  Death  .  477 

CHAPTER   XIII 

Wrestling  with  Harlem  Genealogies — Changes  in  Old  Dutch  Names — 
The  Village  Patentees  and  Their  Descendants  —  Governor  Nicolls 
Changes  the  Name  to  Lancaster — The  Ancient  Ferry-man  and  His 
Fees 495 

CHAPTER   XIV 

Criticised  by  a  Crow — Farewells  to  the  Old  House  by  the  River — Con- 
vinced that  One  Acre  is  Enough — An  Old-time  Harlem  Letter — Our 
Family  Dinner — The  Last  Night  of  ' '  My  Summer  Acre  "  .  .  508 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Inauguration  of  President  Washington Frontispiece 

Trinity  Church 3 

Trinity  Church  (second  edifice) 5 

St.  John's  Chapel  and  Park 13 

The  French  Church  in  Pine  Street 15 

Riley's  Fifth  Ward  Hotel 18 

Statue  of  the  Earl  of  Chatham 19 

Fort  foot  of  Hubert  Street 20 

The  Jersey  Prison  Ship 22 

The  General  Theological  Seminary 23 

Columbia  College  in  1850 25 

The  Moore  House 32 

Old  Fire  Bucket -    . 33 

King's  Bridge 35 

Map  of  New  York,  1782 37 

The  State  Prison 39 

The  Kennedy,  Watts,  Livingston,  and  Stevens  Houses    ....  45 

View  in  New  York,  1769 48 

The  Jail  (now  the  Hall  of  Records) 51 

Seal  of  New  York  City 54 

St.  Paul's  Chapel 58 

The  Burning  of  Barnum's  Museum 6r 

Washington  Hall 63 

The  Residence  of  Philip  Hone,  Broadway  near  Park  Place  ...  67 

Lispenard  Meadows 72 

The  Federal  Hall  in  Wall  Street 74 

City  Hall  Park,  1822 81 

St.  George's  Church,  Beekman  Street 89 

Grave  of  Charlotte  Temple 92 

Grave  of  Alexander  Hamilton 94 

The  Fire  of  1835 99 

"The  Race" 107 


XVI  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  Illumination  in  New  York  on  the  Occasion  of  the  Inaugura- 
tion of  President  Washington 119 

Copper  Crown  from  Cupola  of  King's  College 123 

The  Walton  House  in  Later  Years 125 

Doorway  in  the  Hall  of  the  Walton  House 127 

An  Old  Goose-neck  Engine 129 

The  Stuyvesant  Pear-tree 134 

Coenties  Slip  in  the  Dutch  Times 136 

Tomb  of  Albert  Gallatin 138 

Tomb  of  Captain  Lawrence 140 

Grave  of  George  Frederick  Cooke •    .     .  142 

\Vebb's  Congress  Hall,  142  Broadway 149 

Masonic  Hall • 152 

The  Middle  Dutch  Church 160 

The  Fort  at  the  Battery 163 

The  Old  McComb  Mansion 165 

Trinity  Church  (first  edifice) 168 

Ruins  of  Trinity  Church    .....           170 

City  Hotel,  Broadway,  1812 172 

Monument  to  General  Montgomery 173 

Sir  Peter  Warren's  House,  Greenwich  Village 177 

The  Clermont 179 

In  Broad  Street 185 

No.  2  Broadway,  1798 188 

Fraunce's  Tavern,  Broad  and  Pearl  Streets 190 

The  Stadt  Huys 191 

North  Dutch  Church,  Fulton  Street 193 

Presbyterian  Church,  Wall  Street 194 

Methodist  Church,  John  Street 195 

Lutheran  Church,  William  and  Frankfort  Streets 196 

The  BricH  Church,  Park  Row 197 

View  of  New  York  from  the  North-east 202 

View  of  New  York  from  the  South-west 203 

Mill  Rock  Fort 207 

Shakespeare  Tavern 214 

View  of  New  York  Bay  from  the  Battery,  1822 221 

Apthorpe  Mansion,  Bloomingdale 226 

The  Jumel  Mansion 230 

The  Hamilton  House 233 

The  Gates  Weeping  Willow,  Twenty-second  St.  and  Third  Ave.    .  235 


1! 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xvii 

PAGE 

Van  der  Heuvel  (afterwards  "  Burnham's  "  House) 237 

Fort  Clinton,  at  McGowan's  Pass 239 

The  Beekman  House 240 

Fire  in  Olden  Times,  from  a  Fireman's  Certificate 241 

Fort  George,  from  the  Water  Front  of  the  Present  Battery  .      .      .   243 

Plan  of  Fort  George,  Battery 245 

The  Royal  Exchange,  Broad  Street 247 

A  Plan  of  the  City  of  New  York,  from  an  Actual  Survey,  1728      .   248 

Foot  of  Wall  Street  and  Ferry-house,  1629 252 

Foot  of  Wall  Street  and  Ferry-house,  1746 253 

The  Sugar-house,  Liberty  Street 255 

Sugar-house  in  Liberty  Street 258 

Pearl  Street  House  and  Ohio  Hotel 261 

The  Independent  Battery,  Bunker  Hill 271 

Phillipse  Manor-house f 273 

Washington  House,  foot  of  Broadway 276 

The  Stryker  Homestead 278 

Richmond  Hill    ....  280 

Map  of  the  Fortifications  around  New  York,  1814 283 

Tammany  Hall,  1811 293 

Tammany  Hall  in  Later  Times 295 

Old  Walton  House  in  1776 299 

Tontine  Coffee-house 301 

Manhattan  Water-works,  Chambers  Street 303 

Van  Cortlandt's  Sugar-house 308 

Van  Cortlandt  Manor-house 317 

Distant  View  of  the  Palisades  from  Van  Cortlandt  Park  .     .      .     .319 
Petersfield,  Residence  of  Petrus  Stuyvesant    ........   323 

Claremont 327 

House  of  Nicholas  William  Stuyvesant 331 

Block-house  Overlooking  Harlem  River,  1860 332 

Flag-staff,  Fort  Washington 334 

Plan  of  Fort  Washington 335 

Confluence  of  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek  and  the  Hudson 337 

The  Lane  in  Van  Cortlandt  Park 341 

Van  Cortlandt  Manor-house 343 

New  York  from  Brooklyn  Heights,  1822 353 

An  Old-time  Fire-cap 357 

Dutch  Houses , 363 

Pulpit,  St.  Paul's 375 


xviii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Mill  Rock 377 

Reservoir 385 

Kip's  House 393 

Plan  of  New  York  Island  and  Part  of  Long  Island,  showing  the  po- 
sition of  the  American  and  British  Armies,  August  27th,  1776   .  395 

Turtle  Bay 396 

Old  Storehouse  at  Turtle  Bay 397 

Tower  at  Hallett's  Point 397 

Fort  Stevens  and  Mill  Rock 398 

Fort  Clinton  and  Harlem  Creek 399 

Fort  Fish 401 

Mechanics'  Bell-tower 405 

The  Walter  Franklin  House 407 

Jacob  Harsen  House 408 

Jacob  Arden  House 411 

The  Beekman  Greenhouse 414 

Colonel  Smith's  House 415 

Richard  Riker's  House 422 

Atlantic  Garden,  No.  9  Broadway 427 

The  Gracie  House 432 

Hell  Gate  Ferry 437 

Monument  to  Thomas  Addis  Emmet 441 

I  and  3  Broadway  in  1828 443 

A  Dutch  House 446 

View  from  Mount  Morris 451 

Courtney's  (Claremont)  from  Harlem  Tower 455 

Head  over  Window  of  the  Walton  House 458 

The  Rotunda,  City  Hall  Park 461 

McGowan's  Pass  in  1860 468 

Works  at  McGowan's  Pass,  War  of  1812 470 

Bull's  Head  Tavern,  on  the  Site  of  the  Bowery  Theatre  ....  472 

Rose  Street  Sugar-house 473 

The  Old  Federal  Hall  before  Alteration 481 

King's  College 485 

The  Federal  Hall  on  Wall  Street 491 

An  Old  Advertisement 494 

The  Exchange,  foot  of  Broad  Street 499 

Old  Bridge  and  Dock  at  the  Whitehall  Slip 5<>5 

Broad  Street  and  Exchange  Place,  about  1680 513 

Tomb  of  William  Bradford,  Trinity  Church-yard 518 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 


CHAPTER    I 

SUGGESTIONS  FROM  AN  ANNIVERSARY  CELEBRATION — NEW  YORK  NEAR 
HALF  A  CENTURY  AGO  —  A  REMINISCENCE  OF  THE  DAYS  WHEN 
TRINITY  CHURCH  WAS  NEW — PREACHERS  AND  LAYMEN  OF  A  PAST 
GENERATION 

I   AM  not  a  very  old  boy,  but  already  the  events 
of  years  gone  begin  to  stand  out  with  a  vividness 
which  does  not  belong  to  these  later  days,  and  I  find 
myself  more  than  eager  to  recall  them. 

In  passing  Trinity  Church  on  a  soft  June  morning 
of  1886, 1  found  the  services  of  Ascension  Day  in  prog- 
ress, and  this  brought  back  the  recollection  of  the  part 
I  had  taken  in  the  consecration  services  that  were  held 
there  forty  years  ago  that  day.  I  was  then  one  of  the 
foundation  scholars  of  Trinity  School.  This  amply 
endowed  academy  held  its  sessions  in  a  large  building 
on  Varick  Street,  near  Canal,  and  numbered  150  pu- 
pils. Its  rector  was  the  Rev.  William  Morris,  LL.D., 
a  stalwart  graduate  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  a 
rigid  disciplinarian.  Solomon's  rod  in  his  hands  meant 
something.  On  that  eventful  day  he  marshalled  his 
pupils  in  the  school,  and  then,  placing  himself  at  the 


2  A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW    YORK 

head  in  Oxford  cap  and  resplendent  silk  gown,  marched 
them  down  Broadway  to  the  Globe  Hotel,  where  the 
procession  was  formed. 

The  boys  led  the  van  in  the  stately  march  to  the 
church.  Then  followed  theological  students,  vestry- 
men, and  a  long  line  of  clergymen,  ending  with  the 
Bishop  of  the  diocese,  Dr.  Benjamin  T.  Onderdonk. 
At  the  chancel  rail  we  stopped,  opened  ranks,  and  the 
rest  of  the  procession  passed  up  the  broad  centre  aisle 
between  our  lines,  reciting  the  grand  psalm  of  conse- 
cration, "Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates!"  Of  the 
long  service  that  followed  I  remember  only  the  read- 
ing of  the  first  lesson  by  Dr.  Morris — the  consecration 
prayer  of  Solomon's  Temple  —  and  at  this  lapse  of 
time  I  can  still  hear  his  sonorous  voice  repeating  its 
magnificent  petitions.  Dr.  Hodges  presided  at  the 
organ,  and  he  had  prepared  for  the  occasion  an  ap- 
parently interminable  "  Te  Deum,"  which  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  learning  when  I  became  a  member  of  the 
choir. 

The  consecration  of  Trinity  Church  was  a  great 
event  in  New  York,  and  gave  rise  to  no  end  of  discus- 
sion. It  had  been  darkly  whispered  in  private  circles 
that  some  of  the  parish  clergy  intended  to  "  turn  their 
backs  upon  the  people,"  as  they  all  do  now,  and  the 
public  were  ready  to  protest  against  the  innovation. 
Up  to  that  time  the  chancel  arrangements  that  existed 
in  St.  John's  Chapel,  where  I  usually  attended  church, 
had  been  the  prevailing  ecclesiastical  fashion.  A  cir- 
cular chancel  rail  surrounded  a  wooden  structure  com- 
posed of  a  reading-desk  below  and  pulpit  above,  and 
with  a  little  square  white  wooden  altar  in  front  of  the 
desk  in  which  prayers  were  read.  Into  this  desk  each 


TRINITY   CHURCH 

afternoon  two  clergymen,  one  arrayed  in  a  surplice 
and  the  other  in  a  black  silk  gown,  would  shut  them- 
selves, carefully  closing  the  door,  apparently  from  the 
fear  that  one  of  them  might  fall  asleep  and  tumble 
out.  At  the  proper  time  the  black -robed  minister 
would  go  out  and  reappear  in  the  pulpit,  while  his 
companion  apparently  enjoyed  a  nap.  But  in  the 


4  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

new  Trinity  Church  only  the  altar  was  to  stand  within 
the  railing.  The  pulpit  was  to  be  outside  and  oppo- 
site to  the  prayer- desk.  This  was  a  change,  indeed. 
But  when  it  was  understood  that  a  brazen  eagle  was 
to  support  the  Bible  from  which  the  lessons  of  the 
day  were  to  be  read,  criticism  took  up  the  cudgels  and 
went  to  work.  Bishops  and  sectarian  preachers,  lay- 
men and  professors,  sought  the  columns  of  the  news- 
papers to  vent  their  opinions,  and  the  liveliest  kind  of 
a  controversy  was  waged  for  a  while.  It  ended  in  a 
laugh,  when  a  bogus  letter  from  Bishop  Chase  of  Illi- 
nois was  published,  in  which  he  was  made  to  say  that 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  merits  of  that  particular  eagle, 
but  if  they  would  fill  his  pockets  with  good  golden 
American  eagles  for  the  benefit  of  Jubilee  College,  he 
would  be  content  to  drop  all  controversy. 

As  the  son  of  a  clergyman  it  was  my  good- fortune 
to  know  all  the  eminent  clergymen  of  that  day — at 
least,  to  know  them  as  an  observant  boy  does.  Our 
family  were  ardent  supporters  of  Bishop  Onderdonk 
through  all  his  troubles:  he  had  a  patriarchal  way  with 
us  children  which  seemed  to  leave  a  benediction  be- 
hind him.  Dr.  Berrian,  rector  of  Trinity  Parish,  was 
personally  all  kindness,  but  I  thought  him  the  poorest 
preacher  I  was  compelled  to  hear.  It  was  said  of  the 
good  old  man  that  when  a  country  clergyman,  half 
starved  on  a  salary  of  $500,  came  to  him  and  asked 
his  influence  to  get  him  another  charge,  he  remarked, 
"  I  do  not  see  why  you  young  clergymen  want  to 
change  so  often.  Why,  I  have  been  in  Trinity  Church 
forty  years,  and  never  have  thought  of  leaving."  A 
poor  preacher,  he  was  a  fine  executive  officer.  His 
assistants  were  courtly  Dr.  Wainwright,  who  had  the 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 


5 


famous  newspaper  con- 
troversy with  Presby- 
terian Dr.  Potts  on  the 
text,  "A  Church  with- 
out a  bishop,  a  State 
without  a  king;"  Dr. 
Higbee,  an  eloquent 
Southerner,  scholarly 
Dr.Ogilby,and  Dr.  Ho- 
bart,  son  of  a  former 
bishop  of  New  York. 
Dr.  Higbee  was  the 
favorite  in  the  pulpit, 


TRINITY    CHURCH 
[The  second  edifice,  erected  in  1788] 


and  divided  his  preaching  laurels  with  Dr.  Tyng,  who 
had  recently  come  to  old  St.  George's,  in  Beekman 
Street,  to  succeed  Dr.  Milnor,  and  Dr.  Whitehouse  of 
St.  Thomas,  afterwards  called  to  be  Bishop  of  Illinois. 


6  A    TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

These  clergymen  were  all  present  at  the  consecra- 
tion of  Trinity  Church ;  and  there  were  many  other 
famous  divines  there  also,  including  Dr.  Thomas  House 
Taylor,  rector  of  the  new  Grace  Church,  at  the  head 
of  Broadway;  Dr.  Lyell,  rector  of  Christ  Church,  in 
Anthony  (now  Worth)  Street ;  Dr.  Haight,  the  able 
theologian  who  presided  over  All  Saints',  in  Henry 
Street,  and  who  subsequently  declined  the  mitre  of 
Massachusetts ;  Dr.  Creighton,  of  Tarrytown,who  might 
have  succeeded  Bishop  Onderdonk,  had  he  so  desired ; 
Drs.  Potter,  Vinton,  Cutler,  Duffie,  etc.  Chief  among 
the  bishops  who  were  present  was  Bishop  Doane,  of 
New  Jersey,  who  looked  every  inch  the  prelate  in  his 
robes,  and  who,  in  my  judgment,  was  the  finest  orator 
in  the  Church. 

Speaking  of  pulpit  orators  recalls  an  anecdote  which 
I  caught  as  a  boy  from  the  lips  of  confidential  clerical 
critics.  At  one  time  Drs.  Onderdonk,  Wainwright, 
and  Schroeder  were  the  three  chief  preachers  in  Trin- 
ity Parish,  and  a  witty  layman  undertook  to  give  the 
style  of  the  dogmatic  Onderdonk,  flowery  Schroeder, 
and  courtly  Wainwright,  as  exemplified  in  brief  ser- 
mons on  the  text  "  Two  beans  and  two  beans  make 
four  beans,"  somewhat  as  follows :  Dr.  Onderdonk 
loquitur:  "  The  Church  in  her  wisdom  has  decreed 
that  if  two  beans  be  added  unto  two  beans,  the  prod- 
uct shall  be  four  beans;  and  if  any  self-sufficient  mor- 
tal shall  presume  to  question  this  conclusion  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets,  together  with  the  canons,  let 
him  be  anathema."  Dr.  Schroeder,  after  enunciating 
his  text,  was  supposed  to  wake  at  sunrise,  wander  into 
the  dewy  fields,  and  pluck  one  pearly  bean  after  an- 
other, and  finally  go  into  ecstasies  over  the  quartet  of 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  7 

shining  beauties  which  he  held  in  his  hand.  But  the 
point  of  the  satire  was  reached  in  Dr.  Wainwright's 
case,  who  was  made  to  say :  "  It  has  generally  been 
conceded,  and  nowhere  that  I  know  of  denied,  that  if 
two  beans  be  added  unto  two  beans,  their  product 
shall  be  four  beans.  But  if  there  be  in  this  intelligent 
and  enlightened  audience  any  who  may  venture  to 
have  conscientious  doubts  upon  the  subject,  far  be  it 
from  me,  my  brethren,  to  interfere  with  such  a  per- 
son's honest  convictions." 

Dr.  Wainwright  was  a  cold,  didactic  preacher  in  his 
parish  pulpit,  but  when  elected  bishop  he  astonished 
everybody  by  warming  up  into  an  earnest  evangelist, 
and  he  died  universally  regretted.  Bishop  Onderdonk 
passed  away  under  a  cloud  which  had  hung  over  him 
for  many  years,  and  whose  gloom  was  never  dissipated. 
At  one  time  Dr.  Schroeder  was  the  favorite  preacher 
of  the  city,  and  it  was  said  of  him  that  if  you  wanted 
to  know  where  Schroeder  preached  on  a  Sunday,  you 
had  only  to  follow  the  crowd.  But  his  fame  was  eva- 
nescent, and  when  he  resigned  in  a  pet  he  was  aston- 
ished to  find  that  his  resignation  was  accepted  by  the 
vestry  of  Trinity,  and  was  still  more  astonished  to  find 
himself  a  failure  when  he  attempted  to  set  up  a  church 
of  his  own.  The  building  he  reared  faces  Lafayette 
Place  on  Eighth  Street ;  afterwards  it  was  for  some 
time  occupied  by  St.  Ann's  (Roman  Catholic)  con- 
gregation, and  has  recently  proved  a  failure  as  a 
theatre. 

Forty  years  ago  the  vestrymen  of  Trinity  Parish 
were  a  famous  race  of  men.  Philip  Hone,  the  most 
courtly  Mayor  that  New  York  ever  had,  was  one  of 
them.  Major-general  Dix,  Cyrus  Curtiss,  John  J. 


8  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

Cisco,  Major  Jonathan  Lawrence,  of  the  Revolutionary 
Army,  and  other  men  of  note  were  of  the  number. 
Our  seat  in  St.  John's  Chapel  was  two  pews  behind 
General  Dix,  and  I  used  to  see  the  present  rector  of 
Trinity  Parish  there  —  a  slender,  spectacled  youth  of 
severely  studious  aspect,  whom  I  never  remember  to 
have  seen  smiling  except  when  a  strange  minister  in 
the  reading-desk  fell  sound  asleep  and  failed  to  be 
awakened  by  the  retiring  congregation.  The  families 
of  Gen.  Alexander  Hamilton  and  Gen.  Philip  Schuyler 
were  also  attendants,  as  well  as  those  of  Dr.  Hun- 
ter, General  Morton,  Philip  Lydig,  Dr.  Green,  Rob- 
ert Hyslop,  Oscar  Smedberg,  Lewis  Delafield,  and 
Elias  G.  Drake.  They  have  beautified  the  chancel 
end  of  St.  John's  Chapel  since  those  days,  but  they 
have  not  improved  much  on  the  contents  of  the 
pews. 

The  ecclesiastical  chronicle  of  Trinity  Church  in 
1846  would  be  incomplete  without  mention  of  David 
Lyon,  the  stalwart  sexton,  whose  robust  presence  was 
a  standing  terror  to  the  small  but  mischievous  boys  of 
the  choir.  David  was  an  institution.  Proud  of  the 
church  building  committed  to  his  care,  he  grudged  the 
hours  he  was  compelled  to  spend  away  from  it.  His 
management  of  the  consecration  procession  was  a 
miracle  of  unostentatious  energy.  The  clergy  always 
treated  him  as  a  friend,  and  he  deserved  their  confi- 
dence. In  after-years  I  gratified  a  laudable  ambition 
by  bestowing  half  a  dollar  on  David  for  permitting  me 
with  a  friend  to  mount  up  the  steeple. 

The  New  York  of  forty  years  ago  was  a  different 
community  from  what  it  is  now.  When  Dr.  James 
Milnor,  rector  of  St.  George's,  in  Beekman  Street,  died. 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  9 

the  city  newspapers  turned  their  column  rules  and 
went  into  mourning.  The  dead  preacher  had  resigned 
his  seat  in  Congress  to  enter  the  ministry.  The  Cou- 
rier and  Enquirer  published  the  controversial  letters 
between  Dr.  Potts  and  Dr.  Wainwright,  and  made  a 
great  sensation  out  of  it.  The  reason  for  this  neigh- 
borly state  of  affairs  was  that  the  city  had  then  devel- 
oped only  the  rudiments  of  its  present  glory.  People 
of  wealth  still  clustered  about  the  Battery  and  Bowl- 
ing Green,  or  built  solid  up-town  homes  of  brick  on 
Bond,  Bleecker,  and  Great  Jones  streets,  or  facing 
Washington  Square.  The  rector  of  Trinity  kept  open 
house  with  his  wife  and  three  handsome  daughters  at 
No.  50  Varick  Street,  opposite  St.  John's  Park,  which 
was  then  the  most  aristocratic  quarter  of  the  city. 
Dr.  Wainwright  lived  in  Hubert  Street  and  Dr.  Hig- 
bee  in  Chambers  Street.  The  residence  of  Bishop 
Onderdonk  was  in  Franklin  Street,  between  Church 
Street  and  West  Broadway.  Trinity,  St.  Paul's,  and 
St.  John's  had  large  and  fashionable  congregations, 
who  lived  within  walking  distance  of  the  churches, 
and  the  Battery  had  a  highly  select  circle  of  fre- 
quenters, and  was  the  starting-point  of  many  a  love- 
match  among  Knickerbocker  circles.  Fourteenth 
Street  was  far  up-town.  The  site  of  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel  was  vacant  lots  roughly  fenced  in  with  boards. 
Stages  crept  along  leisurely  every  hour  to  the  pleasant 
rural  hamlets  of  Yorkville,  Harlem,  Bloomingdale,  and 
Manhattanville ;  and,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  honesty 
was  so  much  the  rule  that  people  who  rode  in  Kipp 
and  Brown's  stages  were  allowed  to  pay  their  fare  at 
the  end  of  the  ride,  instead  of  being  compelled  to 
stand  and  deliver  at  the  start, 


IO  A   TOUR  AROUND  NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER    II 

AN  OBLITERATED  PARK — SOME  OLD  CHURCHES — DEPARTED  GLORIES 
OF  VARICK  AND  LAIGHT  STREETS  —  MR.  GREENOUGH's  SCHOOL  — 
RILEY'S  MUSEUM  HOTEL — THE  "TROOP  A"  OF  THE  "FORTIES" 

AT  the  time  when  the  present  century  was  born  a 
wide  sandy  beach  extended  from  the  foot  of  Duane 
Street  to  the  mouth  of  the  estuary  by  which  the  brook 
that  ran  from  the  Collect  Pond,  at  the  present  site  of 
the  Tombs,  through  Canal  Street,  issued  to  the  Hud- 
son River.  The  adjacent  land,  sandy  for  the  most  part 
and  barren,  was  laid  out  in  streets  and  dotted  here  and 
there  with  the  comfortable  homes  of  solid  burghers. 
The  infant  city  had  just  recovered  from  the  untoward 
effects  of  its  long  occupation  by  the  British  troops  and 
the  removal  of  the  seat  of  Government,  and,  mindful 
of  this  progress,  Trinity  Church  began,  about  ninety 
years  ago,  the  erection  of  the  handsome  and  commodi- 
ous church  known  as  St.  John's  Chapel,  located  on 
Varick  Street — so  named  after  one  of  the  early  Mayors, 
who  was  also  an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  Army. 
The  chapel  was  so  large  and  situated  so  far  up-town 
that  the  neighbors  all  wondered  when  the  time  would 
come  that  a  congregation  would  be  found  to  fill  its 
pews. 

In  front  of  the  chapel  a  wide  beach  of  sand,  unshaded 
by  a  tree,  stretched  down  to  the  river.  In  order  to 
attract  settlers  to  the  neighborhood,  the  vestry  of 
Trinity  Parish,  to  which  most  of  the  adjacent  land  be- 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  II 

longed,  determined  to  lay  out  a  large  square  directly 
in  front  of  the  chapel  as  a  private  park,  for  the  benefit 
of  those  who  should  build  homes  fronting  upon  it. 
Trees  were  planted,  broad  gravelled  walks  laid  out, 
flower-beds  and  vases  of  shrubbery  set  at  intervals,  a 
greensward  was  cultivated,  and  the  wilderness  was 
made  to  blossom  as  the  rose.  Thus  was  St.  John's 
Park  born.  It  was  a  thing  of  beauty  in  its  day.  "  Old 
Cisco,"  who  had  been  a  slave  in  the  family  of  that 
name,  was  made  its  keeper,  and  warned  to  keep  a  sharp 
eye  upon  the  boys  of  the  period.  The  park  became  a 
paradise  for  birds ;  robins  and  wrens  and  bluebirds 
abounded,  and  the  Baltimore  oriole  hung  its  nest  on 
the  branches  of  the  sycamores. 

The  loveliness  of  St.  John's  Park  soon  attracted 
many  of  the  best  citizens  of  the  young  metropolis  to 
its  vicinity.  They  reared  substantial  houses  of  brick, 
plain  on  the  outside,  but  luxuriously  furnished  within, 
and  in  the  gardens  they  built  cisterns  and  sank  wells. 
The  city  had  no  water-works,  but  at  every  convenient 
corner  they  dug  and  found  water,  and  erected  wooden 
pumps.  There  was  wealth  enough  on  the  square  to 
pay  for  all  these  improvements,  and  most  of  the  names 
of  the  householders  had  been  known  in  colonial  days. 
The  families  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  General  Schuyler, 
and  General  Morton  were  among  them,  as  were  also 
the  Aymars,  Drakes,  Lydigs,  Coits,  Lords,  Delafields. 
Randolphs,  and  Hunters.  They  owned  their  houses, 
and  had  their  own  keys  to  the  massive  gates  of  the 
park,  from  which  all  outsiders  were  rigorously  excluded. 
The  neighborhood  formed  an  exclusive  coterie,  into 
which  parvenu  wealth  could  find  no  passport  of  ad- 
mission. 


12  A  TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

There  was  no  trouble  now  to  gather  a  congregation 
that  filled  St.  John's  Chapel.  Indeed,  there  arose  a 
demand  for  other  churches  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
Presbyterians  erected  a  house  of  worship  on  Laight 
Street,  at  the  corner  of  Varick,  facing  the  park,  and 
here  for  for  a  number  of  years  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel 
H.  Cox  ministered.  He  was  the  inveterate  foe  of 
slavery,  and  when  the  abolition  troubles  began  and 
developed  into  riots  that  threatened  life  and  proper- 
ty, the  congregation  took  alarm,  Dr.  Cox  resigned  his 
charge,  and  they  called  as  their  pastor  the  Rev.  Flavel 
S.  Mines,  a  Virginian,  who  a  few  years  subsequently 
became  an  Episcopal  clergyman,  and  was  followed 
into  the  church  by  so  many  of  his  congregation  as 
practically  to  end  its  existence.  Both  of  Dr.  Cox's 
sons  became  Episcopal  clergymen  also,  and  one  of 
them  is  now  Bishop  of  Buffalo.  Roe  Lockwood,  the 
publisher,  Henry  A.  Coit,  Daniel  Lord,  and  Mr.  Ay- 
rnar,  the  great  shipping  merchant,  were  elders  and 
pillars  of  the  flock ;  but  the  one  of  all  others  whom 
the  children  loved  most  was  "  Grandma "  Bethune, 
mother  of  the  distinguished  divine  of  that  name.  In 
the  closing  years  of  her  life  she  used  to  gather  a  class 
of  forty  or  fifty  children  at  her  home  every  Sunday, 
and  we  were  all  eager  to  go  and  sit  at  the  feet  of  the 
dear  old  lady. 

The  late  Charles  F.  Briggs,  well  known  in  journalism 
years  ago,  and  the  "  Harry  Franco  >v  of  the  past  genera- 
tion of  novelists,  used  to  attend  Laight  Street  Church 
very  often,  and  in  the  congregation  were  a  bevy  of  his 
pretty  cousins,  daughters  of  a  famous  ship-owner  of 
that  day — one  of  the  Marshalls.  It  was  long  before 
the  dawn  of  aesthetic  taste ;  art  was  looked  upon  in 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  15 

solid  commercial  circles  as  the  luxury  of  idle  hours, 
and  the  profession  of  artist  as  a  mere  excuse  for  lazi- 
ness. No  merchant  would  have  dreamed  of  allowing 
his  daughter  to  marry  "  a  painter."  Yet  a  young  art- 
ist had  dared  to  avow  his  love  to  the  prettiest  of  the 
above-named  bevy  of  young  girls,  and  she  had  boldly 
ventured  to  say  that  she  loved  him  in  return  and  in- 
tended to  marry  him.  Society  was  shocked.  It  mat- 
tered not  that  the  young  man  had  talent  (and,  indeed, 
eventually  he  made  a  name  for  himself  that  all  de- 
lighted to  honor) ;  society  drew  the  line  at  artists,  and 
did  not  recognize  them  as  eligible.  One  day,  as  Mr. 
Briggs  entered  the  house,  the  entire  chorus  of  its 
women  threw  themselves  upon  him  and  begged  him 
to  remonstrate  with  Emily  and  save  the  family  honor. 
"  The  family  honor,"  said  Briggs,  with  the  gruffness  he 
assumed  on  such  occasions,  and  that  was  only  relieved 
by  a  telltale  twinkle  of  the  eye ; 
"  what  has  Emily  been  doing 
now?"  "  Doing  !"  shrieked  the 
chorus, u  she's  going  to  disgrace 
us  all  by  marrying  an  artist." 
"  Pooh  !"  came  the  quick  reply, 
'*  he  isn't  enough  of  an  artist  to 

1  .,  ,1     •  f  J  •  '.  M'Hit    frKKNLH    CHUKC 

make  it  anything  of  a  disgrace.  '  STREET 

The  women  folk  were  indignant 

at  his  apparent  indifference,  but  when  the  sibylline 

utterance  of  Briggs  was  carried  to  the  father,  he  was 

so  amused  by  it  that  he  withdrew  his  opposition  to 

the  marriage. 

Other  churches  were  scattered  about  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  park.  There  were  Methodist  houses  of  worship 
in  Duane  and  Vestry  Streets;  a  Dutch  Reformed 


THE    FRENCH    CHURCH    IN    PINE 


16  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

church  in  Franklin  Street;  a  Presbyterian  church  in 
Canal  Street,  and  the  portly  white  marble  edifice  of 
the  old  Huguenot  Congregation  that  had  emigrated 
from  Pine  Street  to  the  corner  of  Church  and  Frank- 
lin, and  had  united  its  destinies  with  the  Episcopalians. 
These  churches  have  either  disappeared  or  have  fol- 
lowed the  exodus  of  the  church-going  population  up- 
town. They  were  practically  put  hors  de  combat  when 
St.  John's  Park  was  obliterated  from  the  city  map.  It 
was  a  cruel  act.  In  my  eyes  it  seemed  an  outrage 
wholly  unjustifiable.  The  only  public  execution  I 
ever  witnessed  was  the  slaying  of  those  great  trees 
under  which  my  sisters  and  I  had  played,  and  I  would 
as  soon  have  seen  so  many  men  beheaded.  A  fatal 
fascination  drew  me  to  the  spot.  I  did  not  want  to 
go,  but  could  not  help  going  out  of  my  way  to  pass  it 
by.  The  axes  were  busy  with  the  hearts  of  the  giants 
I  had  loved,  and  the  iron-handed  carts  went  crashing 
over  the  flower-beds,  leaving  a  trail  of  death.  The 
trees  lay  prone  over  the  ploughed  gravel-walks,  and  a 
few  little  birds  were  screaming  over  their  tops,  bewail- 
ing the  destruction  of  their  nests.  It  was  horrible. 
As  I  looked  upon  the  scene  I  knew  how  people  must 
feel  when  an  army  passed  over  their  homes,  leaving 
desolation  in  its  wake.  It  boots  not  to  ask  who  was 
at  fault  for  blotting  out  this  oasis.  There  are  some 
who  do  not  want  to  know,  because  they  do  not  want 
to  withhold  forgiveness  from  the  barbarians.  If  the 
pretty  little  garden,  fragrant  with  so  many  memories 
of  old  loves  and  domestic  joys,  had  given  place  to  a 
block  of  homes,  it  would  not  have  been  so  bad  ;  but 
to  rear  in  its  place  a  coarse  pile  of  bricks  for  use  as  a 
freight  depot,  to  make  it  a  centre  of  ceaseless  noise 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  I/ 

and  riot,  was  to  create  in  an  earthly  paradise  the 
abomination  of  desolation. 

Many  years  ago,  previous  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  with  Mexico,  Jeremiah  J.  Greenough  had  a  small 
select  school  at  82  Franklin  Street,  and  when  a  very 
small  boy  I  attended  it.  Among  the  pupils  were  Col. 
H.  S.  Olcott,  the  American  apostle  of  Buddhism; 
George  De  Forest  Lord,  Bowie  Dash,  and  Dr.  George 
Suckley,  who  was  chief  surgeon  of  Gen.  Benjamin  F. 
Butler's  army  corps.  Mr.  Greenough  wielded  the  ruler 
and  rattan  with  considerable  force  and  persistency,  but 
he  was  more  than  rivalled  by  Dr.  Morris,  of  Trinity 
School,  and  Mr.  William  Forrest,  who  had  a  large  acad- 
emy for  boys  on  Franklin  Street,  west  of  Church.  It 
was  always  a  point  of  dispute  between  the  pupils  of 
these  latter  institutions  as  to  whether  "  Billy  "  Forrest 
or  "  old  Morris"  could  whip  the  most  boys  in  a  day. 
There  are  those  who  still  lament  the  disappearance  of 
the  good  old  race  of  school-masters.  Who  knew  them 
in  the  flesh  fail  to  join  in  the  lamentation. 

On  our  way  to  and  from  Mr.  Greenough's  modest 
temple  of  literature  we  used  to  pass  a  structure  that 
had  far  more  interest  for  us  than  the  halls  of  Congress, 
or  of  the  Montezumas  either.  It  occupied  the  west 
corner  of  West  Broadway  and  Franklin  Street,  and 
was  widely  known  to  fame  as  Riley's  Fifth  Ward 
Museum  Hotel.  Its  interior  was  the  prototype  of  the 
modern  bric-a-brac  "  saloon,"  with  its  paintings  from 
the  Paris  Salon,  except  that  there  was  nothing  on  the 
walls  or  in  the  glass  cases  which  stood  on  all  sides  of 
the  main  room,  which  was  reached  by  an  ample  flight 
of  stairs  and  were  always  open  to  inspection,  that  a 
child  might  not  look  at  and  inquire  about.  That  was 


i8 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


a  wonderful  room  indeed.  It  held  original  portraits 
of  great  statesmen  and  warriors,  and  displayed  their 
swords  and  portions  of  their  uniforms.  Among  its 


RILEY  S    FIFTH    WARD    HOTEL 


curiosities  were  a  two-headed  calf  eloquently  stuffed, 
the  pig  that  butted  a  man  off  the  bridge,  one  of  the 
Hawaiian  clubs  that  dashed  out  the  brains  of  Captain 
Cook,  Tecumseh's  rifle,  a  pipe  that  General  Jackson 
had  smoked,  and  a  large  number  of  genuine  relics  of 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


STATUE  OF  THE  EARL  OF 
CHATHAM 


the  colonial  days  of  New  York. 
Riley  was  a  connoisseur  in  relics, 
and  had  good  reason  to  congratu- 
late himself  on  his  collection.  He 
liked  to  have  appreciative  visitors, 
and  his  hotel  was  a  model  of  re- 
spectability. 

Outside  of  the  basement  door 
on  Franklin  Street,  surrounded  by 
a  little  iron  railing  through  which 
some  grasses  struggled  feebly  for 
existence,  stood  a  relic  of  the  past 
which  I  could  never  bear  to  pass 
without  reading  the  inscription  on 
it  once  again.  It  had  once  been 
a  marble  statue  of  William  Pitt, 
Earl  of  Chatham,  placed  by  the 

grateful  people  of  New  York  on  the  steps  of  the  Royal 
Exchange  ten  years  before  the  war  for  independence 
broke  out,  and  dashed  down  and  mutilated  by  the 
British  soldiery  in  revenge  for  the  destruction  of  the 
statue  of  King  George  on  the  Bowling  Green.  The 
head  and  one  arm  of  the  statue  were  broken  off  at  the 
time,  and  the  torso  was  wheeled  away  to  the  corpora- 
tion yard,  where  it  lay  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
among  the  rubbish,  until  Mr.  Riley  disentombed  it. 
After  his  death  the  Historical  Society  got  hold  of  the 
statue,  and  retain  it  in  their  collection.  It  was  an  un- 
fortunate coincidence  for  the  Earl  of  Chatham  that 
he  incurred  the  enmity  of  the  British  soldiers  in  New 
York  in  1776  and  of  the  New  York  Aldermen  of  1886. 
The  latter  signalized  their  displeasure  by  exchanging 
the  name  Chatham  Street,  which  had  an  historical 


20 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK 


and  patriotic  meaning,  for  Park  Row,  which  is  a  mis- 
nomer in  its  application  to  a  street  lying  entirely  be- 
yond the  City  Hall  Park.  But  in  these  busy  days  of 
railroad  franchises,  it  is  too  much  to  expect  that  an 
alderman  would  devote  any  of  his  time  to  the  study 
of  history. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  century  a  round  brick  fort, 
fashioned  after  the  style  of  Fort  Lafayette,  was  erected 
at  the  foot  of  Hubert  Street,  out  in  the  river,  and  it 
stood  there  during  the  war  of  1812  and  for  some  years 
afterwards  as  an  alleged  tower  of  defence  against  for- 
eign foes.  No  enemy's  foot,  however,  has  pressed  the 
banks  of  the  Hudson  for  a  century,  and  this  fort  and 

a  similar  one  that 
once  stood  at  the 
foot  of  Ganse- 
voort  Street  gave 
way  before  the 
rapid  march  of 
commerce.  The 

iJ-P.  —  1    -*    lat ter  was  a  des- 

olate    rum    forty 

years     ago,    and 

FORT    FOOT    OF    HUBERT    STREET  ^      school  .  boys 

of  the  Fifth  Ward 

used  to  make  Saturday  pilgrimages  there  and  play  fa- 
mous games  of  the  period  among  its  ruins.  "  How 
many  miles  to  Babylon  ?"  was  the  last  cry  heard  there 
before  its  walls  were  torn  down  and  carted  away. 

But  there  was  another  demonstration  in  the  way  of 
war  which  the  boys  always  delighted  to  witness,  of 
which  St.  John's  Park  was  a  favorite  centre.  On 
training  days  the  citizen  soldiery  made  their  appear- 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  21 

ance  in  their  Sunday  clothes,  clustering  gloomily 
around  the  official  who  drilled  them  with  a  small  bam- 
boo cane,  and  swore  furiously  when  they  marched,  as 
they  usually  did,  all  out  of  shape.  They  were  an  un- 
tiring source  of  amusement  to.  the  street  urchins,  who 
guyed  them  unmercifully.  But  the  militia — of  whom, 
as  quaint  John  Phoenix  remarked,  it  might  be  truly 
said  that  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like 
one  of  these — excited  unbounded  and  genuine  admira- 
tion, whether  attired  in  the  uniform  of  Austria,  France, 
or  Italy.  The  Highlanders,  whom  old  Captain  Man- 
son,  a  hero  of  the  late  war,  commanded,  generally  car- 
ried most  of  the  boys  in  their  train.  The  plaids  and 
plumes  took  the  eye,  and  the  great  shaggy  hats  carried 
an  impression  of  terror  with  them  that  made  every 
man  look  every  inch  a  soldier.  Yet  of  all  the  militia- 
men of  that  time,  "Dandy"  Marx's  hussars  most 
pleased  my  boyish  eye.  Young  Marx — Henry  Carroll 
—was  the  Beau  Brummel  of  his  generation,  and  his 
sisters  set  the  fashions  to  the  ladies.  They  were  an 
impressive  sight  as  they  walked  down  Broadway  from 
their  up-town  house  on  that  thoroughfare,  near  Prince 
Street,  in  the  afternoons — the  handsome  and  elegantly 
attired  sisters  leading  their  greyhounds  by  a  blue  rib- 
bon, and  escorted  by  their  equally  handsome  brother 
in  a  costume  that  was  always  faultless.  The  sisters 
were  devoted  to  their  brother,  and  none  of  the  three 
ever  married.  Harry  died  years  ago,  and  was  buried 
in  Greenwood.  The  sisters  lived  many  years,  and  be- 
came religious  devotees  in  their  old  age,  bequeathing 
their  money  in  each  case  to  a  clergyman — and  a  law- 
suit. When  the  brother  started  his  company  of  hus- 
sars all  the  gilded  youth  of  the  city  were  eager  to  be 


22  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

enrolled,  and  an  enormous  amount  of  wealth  was  cov- 
ered by  their  brilliant  jackets.  They  were  a  dashing 
squad,  but  grew  tired  of  the  sport  after  a  while  and 
disbanded.  "  Troop  A"  will  find  it  difficult  to  outshine 
u  Dandy  "  Marx's  men. 

At  the  foot  of  Canal  Street  a  little  brook  from  the 
Lispenard  meadows  joined  the  larger  tributary  from 
the  Collect  Pond.  A  short  distance  above,  at  the  foot 
of  Houston  Street,  once  stretched  a  great  swamp, 
through  which  the  Minetta  brook  (which  has  given  its 
name  to  a  street,  a  "  lane,"  and  a  "  place  ")  made  a  tiny 
thread  of  silver.  The  Minetta  was  a  famous  stream 
for  trout.  The  fishermen  angling  patiently  for  impos- 
sible bass  at  the  ends  of  our  wharves  would  hardly  be- 
lieve the  fact,  but  it  is  perfectly  credible.  The  brooks 
and  ponds  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan  were  always 
famous  for  their  fish. 


THE  JERSEY   PRISON    SHIP 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER    III 

COLUMBIA  COLLEGE  AS  IT  WAS  —  A  COMMENCEMENT  FORTY  YEARS 
AGO  —  RIOTS  THAT  COST  LIFE — LANDMARKS  OF  CHELSEA — AN  EC- 
CLESIASTICAL ROMANCE 

PAUSING  for  a  moment  under  the  trees  of  the  old 
Theological  Seminary,  in  ancient  Chelsea  village,  and 
marking  the  march  of  improvement  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  great 
"  quad,"  with  its 
noble  Chapel  of 
the  Good  Shep- 
herd, I  am  re- 
minded that 
there  is  one 
green  spot  back 
in  my  path  to 
which  I  have  not 
yet  paid  my  re- 
spects. From  the 
door  of  the  old 
Cushman  home- 
stead, opposite 

the  east  end  of  the  Seminary  grounds,  comes  one 
of  my  old  school-mates  of  that  name.  A  freak  of 
memory  recalls  him  instantaneously  in  silken  gown,  in 
the  old  chapel  of  Columbia  College.  He  was  slender 
then  and  rosy  ;  now  he  is  more  or  less  gray  and  robust. 
His  student  gown  would  be  a  miserable  misfit  to-day. 


THE    GENERAL   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 


24  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

In  the  old  programmes  of  public  processions  the 
Faculty  and  students  of  Columbia  College  were  al- 
ways awarded  a  place  of  honor.  Omnibuses  were  as- 
signed for  their  conveyance,  and  they  were  expected 
to  embark  in  these  vehicles  in  their  silken  robes.  As 
a  very  small  boy,  I  used  to  stand  on  the  sidewalk  and 
look  upon  these  superior  beings  with  envy,  wondering 
if  I  ever  should  arrive  at  the  dignity  of  being  exalted 
to  an  official  omnibus.  At  this  distance  of  time  I  have 
a  stray  suspicion  that  the  students  who  rode  in  the 
processions  were  chiefly  Freshmen.  Later,  it  was  my 
delight  to  attend  the  commencements  and  semi-an- 
nuals, and  the  speakers  had  always  a  deeply  interested 
audience  of  one  at  least. 

Columbia  College  occupied  an  unbroken  block  be- 
tween Barclay  and  Murray  streets  and  Church  Street 
and  College  Place.  Park  Place  went  only  to  Church 
Street,  and  the  street  from  College  Place  to  the  river 
was  called  Robinson  Street.  The  buildings  were  not 
imposing,  but  there  was  a  scholastic  air  about  the 
quadrangle  which  did  not  fail  to  inspire  awe.  Two 
Revolutionary  cannon  partly  sunk  in  the  ground 
guarded  the  gate-way ;  there  was  a  legend  to  the  ef- 
fect that  they  had  been  captured  from  the  British  by 
Alexander  Hamilton,  once  a  student  of  the  college — 
King's  College,  as  it  was  in  his  day.  It  had  been  my 
ambition  to  be  graduated  at  this  institution,  but  fate 
sent  me  to  an  Eastern  college.  However,  I  kept  up 
my  acquaintance  with  "  the  boys,"  and  visited  them 
on  all  possible  occasions.  Here  it  was  that  my  first 
silk  hat  met  an  untimely  fate.  I  had  just  purchased 
it,  and  with  its  added  dignity  entered  the  side  gate 
impressively,  when  a  well-directed  kick  from  the  stout 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  25 

boot  of  stout  Cutler  C.  McAllister  sent  a  foot-ball  high 
in  air  and  it  came  down  with  a  crash  directly  upon  my 
new  tile.  A  second  visit  to  the  hatter  was  imperative, 
and  I  tried  to  smile,  but  I  never  admired  the  game  of 
foot-ball  afterwards. 

In  those  days  President  King  was  the  academical 


COLUMBIA   COLLEGE   IN    1850 


head  of  Columbia,  but  Professor  Anthon,  "  Old  Bull  " 
Anthon,  as  the  students  irreverently  designated  him, 
was  a  bigger  man  than  all  the  rest  of  the  Faculty  com- 
bined. It  used  to  be  said  of  him  that  he  ate  a  boy 
for  breakfast  every  morning,  so  severe  was  his  disci- 
pline in  the  grammar-school  over  which  he  also  pre- 
sided. In  the  college  class-room  his  powers  of  sar- 
casm made  him  the  terror  of  the  careless  or  lazy 
student.  His  assistant,  Mr.  Drisler,  had  then  won  no 


26  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

special  laurels.  Venerable  Professor  McVickar  was  a 
favorite  with  everybody,  a  gentle,  landly  man,  whose 
erudition  was  proverbial,  and  of  whose  kindliness  the 
students  were  prone  to  take  advantage,  even  though 
it  were  with  pangs  of  penitence.  As  a  boy  I  had  met 
him  often,  and  been  drawn  towards  him,  but  the  other 
members  of  the  Faculty  inspired  me  with  unspeak- 
able awe. 

I  remember  attending  a  commencement  of  Columbia 
College  that  was  held  in  the  Episcopal  Church  of  the 
Crucifixion  on  Eighth  Street,  between  Broadway  and 
Fourth  Avenue.  It  was  soon  after  the  Mexican  War 
had  closed  that  I  attended  the  commencement  at  this 
church,  and  General  Scott,  tall  and  soldierly,  was  a 
conspicuous  figure  on  the  platform.  One  of  the 
speakers,  a  son  of  Dr.  Schroeder,  rector  of  the  church, 
turned  and  addressed  the  general,  who  bowed  in  a 
dignified  manner  to  the  plaudits  of  the  audience.  But 
the  speaker  who  most  challenged  my  admiration  that 
day  was  "  Billy  "  Armitage,  whose  popularity  with  his 
classmates  seemed  to  be  unbounded.  He  was  sub- 
sequently Bishop  of  Wisconsin,  and  died  in  1873,  be- 
fore he  had  reached  the  prime  of  life. 

The  men  of  that  epoch  were  my  seniors.  A  few 
years  only  intervened  between  us,  but  they  made  a 
great  gulf  in  those  days.  Later  I  knew  all  the  boys. 
Among  these  were  John  H.  Anthon,  afterwards  the 
eloquent  leader  of  the  Apollo  Hall  Democracy, "  Jack  " 
Byron,  Cutler  C.  McAllister,  Dr.  Thurston,  Samuel  F. 
Barger,  the  railway  financier,  Col.  H.  S.  Olcott,  Gen. 
Stewart  L.  Woodford,  since  Lieutenant-governor  and 
Congressman ;  Bob  Chisholm,  afterwards  a  Confeder- 
ate officer;  a  delegation  from  the  neighborhood  of 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  27 

St.  John's  Park,  consisting  of  the  Smedbergs,  Hamil- 
tons,  Lycligs,  Hyslops,  and  Drakes ;  George  C.  Pen- 
nell,  who  lived  in  Chambers  Street,  and  was  popularly 
reputed  to  have  weighed  two  hundred  pounds  when 
he  was  born  (he  had  a  voice  to  match,  and  when  he 
spoke  his  great  piece  "  Sampson  "  he  almost  literally 
brought  down  the  house) ;  a  lot  of  quiet  students  who 
afterwards  became  parsons,  J.  S.  B.  Hodges,  Brewer, 
Dickinson,  etc.  Why  lengthen  out  the  roster?  There 
is  another  set  of  college  buildings  now,  with  new 
brands  of  professors,  and  a  thousand  catalogued  stu- 
dents. We,  who  remember  old  Columbia  College  in 
the  days  when  a  literary  atmosphere  still  lingered 
about  Park  Place,  and  a  stray  milliner  employed  a 
half-dozen  pretty  apprentices  in  her  fashionable  estab- 
lishment on  that  thoroughfare,  are  gray-headed  and 
have  nearly  finished  our  story.  Morituri  vos  saluta- 
mus  ! 

The  University  of  New  York  still  keeps  its  location 
on  Washington  Square.  Its  walls  recall  one  of  the 
early  riots  of  the  city,  caused  by  an  uprising  of  work- 
ing-men against  the  use  of  stone  cut  by  State  Prison 
convicts  in  the  construction  of  the  building.  The 
military  were  called  out,  but  there  was  no  bloodshed. 
In  my  undergraduate  days  there  was  a  feeling  of  jeal- 
ousy between  the  University  and  the  Columbia  Col- 
lege boys  (I  believe  they  all  spoke  of  themselves  as 
"  men,"  by  the  way),  and  as  the  superiority  of  age  was 
on  the  side  of  old  Columbia,  the  college  took  airs 
upon  itself  accordingly.  Theodore  Frelinghuysen  was 
Chancellor  of  the  University  then,  if  I  remember,  and 
his  name,  viewed  socially  and  politically,  was  a  tower 
of  strength.  I  never  pass  the  University  building  of 


28  A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW    YORK 

late  years  but  I  associate  it  with  the  "  Cecil  Dreeme  " 
of  Theodore  Winthrop  (poor  fellow,  the  promise  of 
his  brilliant  young  life  was  dashed  to  pieces  in  the 
fight  at  Big  Bethel),  which  has  invested  the  structure 
with  a  fascinating  interest. 

Remembrance  of  the  working-men's  riot  at  the  Uni- 
versity induces  me  to  step  aside  and  visit  the  scene  of 
the  Astor  Place  riot.  That  was  tragedy  in  dead  ear- 
nest. A  school-boy  at  the  time,  I  remember  the  ex- 
citement that  pervaded  all  classes  as  to  the  relative 
claims  of  Forrest  and  Macready.  As  a  full-blooded 
American,  I  naturally  stood  up  for  home  talent,  and 
helped  make  life  unpleasant  for  a  youthful  Londoner 
in  my  class  at  school.  The  sensation  made  by  the 
bloodshed  in  Astor  Place  was  like  the  opening  of  war 
at  jur  doors.  With  a  school-boy's  curiosity,  I  was  at 
tl  e  scene  early  the  next  morning,  and  sought  out  with 
eager  interest  some  little  dingy  spots  of  red  that  were 
pointed  out  to  sight-seers,  and  the  places  on  the  north- 
ern wall  of  the  big  house  at  the  corner  of  Lafayette 
Place  which  had  been  chipped  out  by  the  bullets  of 
the  soldiery.  It  was  not  thought  safe  for  my  sisters 
to  go  to  Mme.  Okill's  school  at  the  corner  of  Clinton 
Place  and  Mercer  Street  that  day,  and  I  had  the  glory 
of  having  visited  the  seat  of  war  all  to  myself.  The 
riot  left  one  unanswered  conundrum  :  Who  gave  the 
order  to  fire?  No  one  desired  to  claim  the  honor  of 
issuing  the  command,  and  the  officers  of  the  militia 
finally  settled  down  to  the  conviction  that  the  bruised 
and  battered  soldiery  began  the  fire  themselves.  The 
locality  was  then  a  fashionable  centre ;  the  slums  in- 
vaded it,  and  left  their  mark  upon  it  in  blood. 

But  to  return  to  Chelsea.     London  Terrace  was  a 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  29 

charming  place  of  residence  forty  years  ago,  and  still 
retains  much  of  its  old-time  beauty.  A  few  years  later 
the  solid  men  of  the  lower  wards  on  the  west  side 
began  building  in  the  upper  section  of  Chelsea,  be- 
tween Eighth  and  Ninth  avenues  and  Twenty-seventh 
and  Thirtieth  streets,  and  this  locality  to  this  day  re- 
tains an  air  of  eminent  respectability,  and  its  ample 
rear  gardens  are  a  ceaseless  source  of  comfort  to  the 
residents.  West  of  this  settlement  the  city  is  still 
unattractive.  It  was  a  wild  place  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  old  Hudson  River  Rail- 
road depot  there  still  retards  public  and  private  im- 
provements. But  the  river  front  is  picturesque,  and 
across  the  stream  rise  the  heights  of  Hoboken,  crowned 
by  the  Passionist  monastery  and  church.  The  heights 
as  they  were,  where  nature  left  them  covered  with  f-»r- 
est  trees,  were  still  prettier,  but  one  can  be  gratef  1 
that  man  cannot  mar  the  landscape  utterly. 

Two  landmarks  of  old  Chelsea  remain  unchanged. 
At  the  corner  of  Twenty-eighth  Street  and  Ninth  Ave- 
nue stands  the  old  Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles — 
that  is,  it  is  old  comparatively,  though  the  painters 
have  attired  it  in  a  new  dress  of  red  with  brown 
trimmings.  A  generation  ago  the  Rev.  Dr.  R.  S. 
Howland  was  the  rector,  and  the  late  Dr.  George  J. 
Geer  was  his  assistant.  They  were  excellent  men, 
both  of  them,  and  Dr.  Geer  was  always  good  com- 
pany. One  of  my  uncles  was  a  vestryman  of  the 
church,  and  he  told  me  the  story  of  its  foundation.  A 
young  man,  son  of  a  great  ship-builder,  determined  to 
study  for  the  ministry  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  though 
his  father  was  not  of  that  faith.  The  son  persisted, 
and  the  father  made  his  will,  cutting  off  the  disobe- 


30  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

dient  son  with  the  proverbial  shilling.  Ordained  and 
in  the  ministry,  but  cut  off  from  the  wealth  he  should 
have  inherited,  the  son  kept  on  his  way  unmoved— 
but  not  unwatched  by  the  father.  Touched  by  his 
consistent  conduct,  the  father  made  a  new  will,  leaving 
to  the  once  disinherited  boy  his  entire  possessions. 
Then  the  old  man  died.  The  son  divided  the  prop- 
erty equally  among  the  heirs,  and  out  of  his  own  share 
built  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles  as  a  thank-offer- 
ing. A  good  lesson  for  a  church-spire  to  teach. 

Dr.  Geer  was  always  jolly,  and  dearly  loved  a  good 
joke.  The  last  time. I  saw  him  he  told  me  how  one 
day,  some  years  before,  as  his  sexton  helped  him  to 
put  on  his  surplice,  he  noticed  that  the  man  had  on  a 
most  doleful  countenance,  and  he  asked  him  what  was 
the  matter.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Geer/'  said  the  sexton,  "  I  wish 
we  might  have  some  Gospel  preaching  here.  This 
morning  the  Methodist  preacher  at  the  Chelsea  Church 
is  going  to  improve  the  flood,  and  to-night  he  will  im- 
prove the  hanging.  Can't  you  do  it,  too?"  There  had 
been  an  execution  at  the  Tombs  and  a  notable  rise  in 
the  Hudson  that  week — hence  the  outburst  of  ecstasy. 

The  sturdy  gray  granite  tower  of  old  St.  Peter's 
Church  also  shows  no  mark  of  the  flight  of  years.  On 
the  contrary,  I  observe  as  I  pass  it  with  a  tourist's  eye 
that  it  has  set  itself  off  with  certain  modern  furbelows 
in  the  shape  of  turreted  wooden  porticos  at  the  door- 
ways, as  pardonable  a  vanity  as  the  fresh  violet  rib- 
bons with  which  my  grandmother  was  wont  to  deco- 
rate her  best  Sunday  cap.  "  It  doesn't  signify,  Felix," 
she  would  say,  "  but  I  do  like  to  see  old  folks  spruce 
themselves  up,  and  somehow  I  always  want  to  look 
my  best,  even  to  my  grandson." 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  3! 

There  is  a  pathetic  strain  of  association  with  the 
old  church,  which  goes  back  to  a  day  when  a  young 
student  of  divinity  made  more  noise  in  the  American 
ecclesiastical  world  than  the  whole  bench  of  bishops. 
It  was  at  the  time  when  Puseyism,  so  called,  was  on 
everybody's  tongue,  and  old-fashioned  high  and  dry 
churchmen  considered  it  a  mortal  sin  for  an  officiating 
clergyman  to  "  turn  his  back  upon  the  congregation." 
On  the  day  when  Arthur  Carey  was  to  be  ordained  to 
the  ministry,  Drs.  Smith  and  Anthon,  rectors  of  St. 
Peter's  and  St.  Mark's  churches,  respectively,  stood 
up  to  object  to  proceeding  with  the  service.  Thence 
arose  the  wildest  kind  of<an  ecclesiastical  circus.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  bitter  persecution  of  the  late 
Bishop  Onderdonk,  who  ordained  Mr.  Carey,  and  for 
a  while  it  divided  clergy  and  people  into  warring  fac- 
tions, and  made  the  diocesan  conventions  in  old  St. 
John's  Chapel  a  species  of  theological  bear-garden. 
Poor  Carey!  He  had  a  short,  sad  life.  A  few  months 
afterwards  he  died  at  sea,  and  when  a  kindly  Presby- 
terian clergyman,  who  was  somewhat  suspicious  of  all 
ritualists,  and  knew  of  Mr.  Carey  only  through  the 
religious  press,  stood  at  his  bedside  and  asked  him  if 
he  placed  all  his  reliance  on  his  Saviour  in  that  hour, 
the  dying  youth  turned  a  reproachful  look  upon  him 
and  replied,  "  Of  course  I  do."  The  clergyman  said 
afterwards  that  he  had  never  witnessed  a  more  peace- 
ful and  edifying  death,  and  bore  high  testimony  to 
Arthur  Carey's  faith.  It  was  the  echo  of  this  terrific 
ecclesiastical  storm,  with  its  wild  warrings  of  good  men 
and  its  undercurrent  of  pathos,  that  seemed  to  sweep 
around  the  turrets  of  old  St.  Peter's  as  I  passed  by. 

Not  far  from  the  church,  and  occupying  the  entire 


32  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

block  between  Twenty-second  and  Twenty-third  streets 
and  Eighth  and  Ninth  avenues,  stood,  a  generation  ago, 
the  picturesque  home  of  Clement  C.  Moore.  It  had 
been  the  country-seat  of  his  father,  the  second  Bishop 
of  New  York,  and  the  grading  of  the  streets  had  left 
the  entire  block  elevated  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  above 
the  sidewalk.  The  cosiest  of  suburban  homes,  it  was 


THE    MOORE    HOUSE 


hidden  by  great  oaks  and  elms,  and  outsiders  had  only 
glimpses  of  the  loveliness  of  its  surroundings.  Here 
lived  the  kindliest  of  scholars,  the  most  learned  of  col- 
lege professors,  the  most  assiduous  of  bookworms,  a 
writer  whose  published  works  were  held  in  highest 
reverence  by  the  learned  men  of  his  day.  But  he  is 
known  to  posterity  by  none  of  these  sound  claims  to 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  33 

reputation.  A  little  rhyme,  dashed  off  under  this 
roof,  when  the  trees  were  bare  of  leaves  and  the  rob- 
ins had  departed,  and  written  solely  for  the  pleasure 
of  his  grandchildren,  has  made  the  name  of  Clement 
C.  Moore  a  household  word  wherever  the  English 
tongue  is  spoken.  Here  he  wrote  the  nursery  rhyme 
that  all  childhood  has  since  learned:  "  'Twas  the 
Night  Before  Christmas ;"  and  by  this  unsuspected 
little  pathway  he  mounted  up  to  fame. 

It  is  a  pity  that  green  fields  and  bright  gardens  have 
to  give  place  to  bricks  and  mortar  and  bluestone  pave- 
ments ;  and  old  Chelsea,  in  its  prime,  was  a  very  ham- 
let of  roses  and  romance.  But,  after  all,  as  my  grand- 
mother would  say,  "  It  doesn't  signify." 
3 


OLD    FIRE    BUCKET 


34  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 


CHAPTER    IV 

TO  ALBANY  BY  SLOOP — AN  INCIDENT  OF  STEAMBOAT  COMPETITION — 
THE  ROMANCE  OF  A  CONVICT  —  GENESIS  OF  FASHIONABLE  PARKS 
—THE  "PROFESSORSHIP  OF  NEW  YORK" 

"  THAT  was  a  terrible  week." 

It  is  my  grandmother  who  is  speaking.  The  old 
lady  sits  by  the  open  window  in  a  pleasant  little  cot- 
tage in  Chelsea.  Her  best  cap  adorns  her  white  hair, 
and  the  vanity  of  violet  ribbons  further  sets  it  off.  A 
lithe  and  beautiful  cat  is  curled  up  cosily  at  her  feet ; 
and  on  the  sofa,  curled  up  in  much  the  same  fashion, 
is  the  hostess  of  my  grandmother,  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
Cuthbert,  who  for  half  a  century  had  a  drug-store  on 
Grand  Street,  half-way  between  Broadway  and  the 
Bowery. 

"  It  doesn't  signify,"  says  my  grandmother,  falling 
gently  into  one  of  her  favorite  modes  of  expression, 
"  but  I  shall  never  forget  that  week  on  the  Albany 
schooner.  We  had  a  horrible  storm  in  the  Highlands, 
and  we  were  all  sea-sick  and  nearly  wrecked  ;  and  then 
we  were  becalmed  above  Poughkeepsie  for  two  days, 
and  it  took  us  just  a  week  to  make  the  voyage.  I  de- 
clare, I  never  see  a  schooner  but  it  gives  me  a  touch  of 
sea-sickness.  I  wished  afterwards,"  she  added,  inno- 
cently, "  that  we  had  got  out  and  walked.  And  just 
to  think  that  now  the  steamboats  advertise  to  carry 
you  to  Albany  for  a  shilling!" 

She  has  told  me  often  of  her  voyage  up  the  Hud- 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  35 

son,  when  the  country  was  young.  The  sloop  packet 
started  from  a  wharf  near  the  Battery.  It  sailed  past 
the  blooming  gardens  of  Greenwich  Village ;  by  the 
frowning  walls  of  the  State  prison  at  the  foot  of  Amos 
Street  ;  beyond  the  green  fields  that  stretched  out 
until  the  pretty  little  hamlet  of  Chelsea  was  reached, 
where  the  gray  turrets  of  the  Episcopal  Seminary 
were  at  that  time  going  up ;  and  then  swept  by  an 
unbroken  succession  of  rural  villas  and  manors  up  to 
the  heights  named  in  honor  of  Fort  Washington,  and 
thence  looked  back  upon  historic  King's  Bridge,  the 


KING  S    BRIDGE 

seething  waters  of  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek,  and  the 
ample  possessions  of  the  Phillipse  family  and  the  Van 
Cortlandts. 

That  was  a  wonderfully  exciting  time  when  the  rival 
steamboats  advertised  to  carry  passengers  to  Albany 
for  a  shilling,  and  an  army  of  "  runners  "  pervaded  the 
streets  and  thronged  the  wharves,  pulling  and  hauling 
at  the  persons  and  baggage  of  the  unhappy  victims. 
Racing  was  rife  on  the  river,  and  there  was  always  a 
tinge  of  excitement  in  the  voyage,  through  the  proba- 
bility of  a  boiler  explosion  or  a  fire.  The  wreck  of  the 
Swallow  and  the  burning  of  the  Henry  Clay  are  among 


36  A    TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

the  memories  of  a  day  in  which  the  names  of  the  steam 
clippers  of  the  Hudson  (some  of  which  still  drag  flo- 
tillas of  canal-boats  through  the  waters  on  which  they 
once  walked  as  queens)  were  as  well  known  as  the  pres- 
ent favorites  of  the  race-tracks. 

There  was  a  queer  genius  in  my  regiment  named 
Bickford.  His  hair  was  red,  and  his  stride  was  un- 
gainly, but  he  would  have  been  able  to  take  care  of 
himself  either  at  the  Court  of  St.  James's  or  on  a  desert 
island.  In  search  of  his  fortune,  he  drifted  to  New 
York  at  the  time  when  the  rivalry  between  steamboats 
was  at  its  height.  Bundle  in  hand,  he  suffered  himself 
to  be  dragged  on  one  of  the  boats  by  a  runner,  where 
he  took  his  bearings  and  laid  out  his  campaign.  When 
the  supper-bell  sounded  he  seated  himself  at  the  table 
and  laid  in  a  square  meal.  When  the  steward  came 
for  his  money,  Bickford  said  he  had  none  and  didn't 
know  any  was  wanted  ;  that  one  fellow  had  offered  to 
take  him  to  Albany  for  a  shilling,  another  for  sixpence, 
and  a  third  for  nothing  at  all.  So  he  had  come  along, 
and  supposed  he  was  to  be  taken  care  of  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  his  company.  The  captain  was  summoned," and 
demanded  to  see  the  fool  who  was  travelling  free  to 
Albany.  Bickford's  stolid  assumption  of.  ignorance 
was  too  much  for  the  captain.  "  Never  travelled  be- 
fore ?  Never  saw  a  steamboat,  eh  ?  Well,  this  is  fun  ; 
come  right  along."  Bickford  told  the  story  in  Libby 
Prison  to  a  roomful  of  officers — he  was  then  acting  as 
my  orderly — somewhat  as  follows :  "  The  captain  took 
me  to  the' engine-room,  and  I  was  horrified  at  the 
sights  and  sounds  there,  of  course.  The  engineer 
turned  the  steam  and  water  on  me,  and  I  shrieked  and 
they  roared.  I  asked  the  curiousest  questions  I  could 


38  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

think  of ;  asked  them  to  light  a  candle  and  take  me 
down-stairs  into  the  kitchen,  and  up-stairs  into  the  bed- 
rooms ;  and  they  laughed  till  they  cried.  Then  the  cap- 
tain introduced  me  to  a  cabin  full  of  passengers  as  the 
biggest  fool  he  had  met  yet.  I  never  let  on  that  I  was 
anything  but  a  fool,  and  I  got  a  good  bed  that  night, 
breakfast  the  next  morning,  and  four  or  five  dollars 
from  the  passengers  to  help  me  on  my  way.  Fool !  I 
wasn't  half  as  big  a  fool  as  the  captain,  and  they  could 
squirt  steam  on  me  all  night,  as  long  as  I  was  getting 
pay  for  it." 

Queer  are  the  pranks  that  time  plays  with  old  build- 
ings. The  State  prison  that<once  stood  on  Amos  Street 
(West  Tenth  Street  now)  has  been  transformed  into  a 
brewery.  Its  white  outside  walls  alone  are  unchanged, 
and  serve  to  mark  the  locality  ;  but  even  these,  of  late 
years,  have  been  allied  to  red  brick  wings  and  other  im- 
provements in  such  a  way  as  to  take  off  much  of  their 
old-time  bareness.  The  interior  is  all  changed.  The 
prison  yard  used  to  reach  down  to  the  river,  and  outside 
were  sunny  fields  and  a  wide  stretch  of  beach.  Now, 
streets  have  been  extended  west  of  the  prison  site  and 
far  into  the  river,  and  buildings  cover  them,  while  be- 
yond the  new  river  line  the  great  iron  steamships  of 
modern  commerce  nestle  against  the  wharves.  It  is 
half  a  century  since  the  inmates  of  the  old  prison  were 
transferred  to  Sing  Sing ;  and  the  city,  excepting  a  few 
old  people  born  in  Greenwich  Village  or  Chelsea,  have 
forgotten  all  about  the  former  home  of  the  convict. 

I  never  pass  by  the  old  prison  walls  but  I  think 
of  a  little  episode  that  had  its  scene  there,  which 
developed  a  great  deal  of  human  nature.  A  young 
man  had  committed  forgery  and  had  been  sentenced  to 


A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 


39 


death.  The  preparations  were  all  made  for  the  execu- 
tion, which  was  to  take  place  in  Washington  Square, 
and  a  large  crowd  had  gathered,  when  news  came  that 
a  reprieve  had  been  granted  at  the  last  hour.  There 
were  many  bitter  expressions  of  disappointment  from 


THE   STATE   PRISON 

the  sight-seers,  among  whom  was  a  boy  who  subse- 
quently told  me  the  story.  It  appeared  that  some  ber 
nevolent  and  active  members  of  the  Society  of  Friends 
had  become  interested  in  the  criminal;  and  had  secured 
the  commutation  of  his  sentence  to  imprisonment  for 
life.  Overjoyed  at  his  escape  from  the  gallows,  the 
young  man  made  himself  a  model  prisoner,  and  was 
soon  placed  in  charge  of  a  shoe-shop,  where  he  paraded 
up  and  down,  rattan  in  hand,  between  the  benches,  and 
proved  himself  a  terror  to  his  fellow-convicts.  Virtue 
has  its  reward.  The  kindly  Quakers  left  no  stone  un- 
turned until  they  had  secured  his  pardon,  and  then  the 
devout  convert  was  set  up  in  a  shoe-shop  of  his  own, 
where  he  handled  the  "  thee  "  and  "thou"  and  the 
cash  to  perfection.  At  last  he  had  become  a  man  of 
consequence  among  the  Quakers  and  a  man  of  mark 
in  the  business  community,  and  then  he  saw  his  op- 


40  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

portunity  and  seized  it.  One  day  he  turned  up  miss- 
ing. He  had  converted  all  his  assets  into  cash,  had 
gathered  in  a  golden  harvest  by  forging  the  names  of 
all  his  business  friends,  and  had  crowned  his  iniquity 
by  eloping  with  the  pretty  Quaker  daughter  of  the 
generous  benefactor  who  had  secured  his  release  from 
the  gallows.  New  York  never  saw  him  again. 

His  career  had  not  been  without  its  thorns  in  the 
mean  time.  The  shadow  of  a  dangling  noose  sometimes 
came  athwart  the  sunshine.  One  day  he  had  been  in 
a  towering  passion  with  one  of  his  workmen  because 
he  had  not  finished  a  pair  of  shoes  at  the  time  he  had 
promised.  He  told  the  man  he  had  no  right  to  break 
his  promise  and  disappoint  him.  "  Master,"  said  the 
man,  quietly,  "  you  have  disappointed  me  worse  than 
that."  "  How  did  I,  you  rascal?  When?"  "  When 
I  waited  a  whole  hour  in  the  rain  to  see  you  hanged !" 

In  the  old  Dutch  colonial  days  the  executions  of 
criminals  took  place  outside  the  Battery,  on  the  beach. 
Under  the  English  the  scene  was  transferred  to  the 
Commons,  the  present  City  Hall  Park.  In  the  pres- 
ent century  executions  took  place  in  the  vicinity  of 
Houston  and  Wooster  streets,  and  then  on  the  open 
ground  now  known  as  Washington  Square.  Criminals 
were  buried  under  the  gallows  in  all  these  places,  and 
it  is  a  curious  fact  that  most  of  our  smaller  parks  were 
not  reserved  as  pleasure  places,  but  for  public  use  in 
the  interment  of  paupers.  The  upper  portion  of  the 
City  Hall  Park  was  originally  a  potter's  field,  and 
adjoining  it  was  a  negro  burial-ground  that  extended 
across  Chambers  Street.  Washington  Square  was  used 
not  only  as  a  burial-place  for  paupers,  but  also  for  yel- 
low-fever patients,  and  the  ashes  of  the  dead  lie  thick 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK  41 

under  its  green  patches  of  sward  and  stately  elms. 
Subsequently  a  potter's  field  was  opened  at  Madison 
Square,  adjoining  the  public  buildings  that  once  stood 
there — the  House  of  Refuge  occupying  the  site  of  the 
Worth  Monument.  Fashion  enjoys  the  lovely  little 
park,  but  little  recks  that  it  owes  its  pleasant  shade  to 
the  tramps  and  the  criminals  whose  bones  lie  mould- 
ering beneath  the  grass  and  flowers. 

It  is  a  grateful  incident  in  connection  with  this  sum- 
mer tour  around  New  York — begun  originally  with  the 
idea  of  showing  to  the  modern  race  of  Gothamites 
how  much  there  is  within  their  local  boundaries  to 
interest  and  inspire  them — that  these  papers  have 
brought  to  the  writer  a  number  of  appreciative  letters 
of  encouragement.  One  suggests  that  it. would  be  a 
good  thing  to  tell  the  story  of  the  old  merchants  who 
lived  in  Pearl  and  Broad  streets,  and  ,on  lower  Broad- 
way, and  whose  social  habits  would  form  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  club -life  of  to-day.  Another  speaks 
of  Washington  Square  in  its  ancient  glory,  when  the 
Alsops,  Rhinelanders,  Robinsons,  and  other  solid  old 
families  had  their  homes  facing  its  elms,  and  not  far 
away  lived  the  Grinnells,  Bogerts,  Leroys,  Minturns, 
and  Livingstons.  This  letter  recalled  in  one  of  its 
suggestions  a  man  of  mark  who  but  recently  passed 
away  in  Italy,  and  who,  in  his  prime,  I  thought  to  be 
the  handsomest  man  in  the  city.  This  was  James  E. 
Cooley,  of  the  firm  of  Cooley,  Keese  &  Hill,  auction- 
eers, whose  home  was  on  Macdougal  Street,  near 
Washington  Square,  and  who  was  an  accomplished 
scholar  as  well  as  genial  gentleman.  A  third  letter 
expresses  the  hope  that,  in  some  future  article,  the 
writer  will  "  indulge  us  in  a  more  detailed  account  of 


42  A    TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

the  old  residents  about  St.  John's  Park,  and  what  has 
become  of  them  and  their  descendants.  Take  Beach 
Street,  for  instance.  There  were  the  Parets,  Robert 
B.  Minturn,  Wm.  Whitlock,  the  Hyslops,  John  C.  Ham- 
ilton, the  Smedbergs,  Tracys,  and  George  Griffin,  with 
his  blue  side-winged  spectacles,  and  broad  shoes  con- 
structed for  comfort.  And  then  on  Laight  Street,  Dr. 
Wilkes,  Dr.  Green,  the  Lydigs,  and  all  of  them.  Let 
us  hear  about  them  all." 

A  writer  in  the  Evening  Post  once  suggested  the 
propriety  of  founding  a  "Professorship  of  New  York" 
at  Columbia  College,  with  the  idea  of  imparting  to  the 
student  of  society  accurate  knowledge  of  the  city  in 
which  we  move  and  have  our  being.  That  was  an  ad- 
mirable idea.  The  modern  writer  of  press  letters  or  ar- 
ticles about  this  city  knows  in  society  only  the  very  re- 
cent Mrs.  PotipHar  and  her  friends.  For  him  the  old 
names  of  the  past  have  no  meaning.  Yet  the  Knicker- 
bocker race  is  not  extinct.  It  sounds  no  trumpets  and 
creates  no  sensations.  To  its  charmed  circle  the  gold- 
en eagle  is  no  passport  of  admission.  There  was  a  youth 
of  tender  years,  born  in  Connecticut,  and  who  had  nev- 
er strayed  beyond  its  borders,  who  was  asked  at  a  school 
examination  which  were  the  principal  rivers  of  the 
world.  He  promptly  responded,  "  The  Scantic,  the 
Podunck,  and  the  Connecticut."  On  the  same  princi- 
ple the  average  exotic  who  chronicles  the  social  doings 
of  the  metropolis  runs  over  the  gamut  of  a  few  mod- 
ern millionaires  and  their  kin,  and  does  not  dream  that 
he  has  not  done  full  justice  to  his  theme.  As  for  the 
historical  points  that  could  make  every  nook  and  cor- 
ner of  the  city  a  romance,  they  are  outside  of  his  knowl- 
edge. By  all  means  we  should  have  the  professorship. 


A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW    YORK  43 


CHAPTER  V 

ECHOES  OF  THE  STREETS— MERCHANTS  OF  A  PAST  GENERATION— SOL1I 
MEN  WHO  ENJOYED  LIFE — MUSEUM  DAYS — THE  OLD  AUCTIONEERS 
— THE  HEROES  OF  COMMERCE 

THURLOW  WEED  once  said  to  me  that  he  regarded 
the  description  of  the  thronging  footsteps  that  beset 
the  house  of  Dr.  Manette,  in  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,  as 
the  most  wonderful  piece  of  descriptive  writing  that 
Charles  Dickens  had  penned.  He  quoted,  in  illustra- 
tion, this  passage  :  "  The  footsteps  were  incessant,  and 
the  hurry  of  them  became  more  and  more  rapid.  The 
corner  echoed  and  re-echoed  with  the  tread  of  feet ; 
some,  as  it  seemed,  under  the  windows ;  some,  as  it 
seemed,  in  the  room  ;  some  coming,  some  goyng,  some 
breaking  off,  some  stopping  altogether;  all  in  the  dis- 
tant streets,  and  no  one  in  sight."  When  I  walk  along 
lower  Broadway  in  the  quiet  night,  as  sometimes  hap- 
pens, I  hear  the  hurry  of  those  footsteps  on  the  de- 
serted pavement.  They  bring  back  to  me  the  faces  of 
the  dead — the  white-haired  patriarchs  to  whom  I  looked 
up  with  reverence  as  a  boy ;  the  stalwart  men  whose 
sturdy  strength  seemed  to  defy  all  change  ;  the  manly 
youth  who  bore  the  names  that  commerce,  professional 
life,  or  literature  had  delighted  to  honor.  They  surely 
are  not  dead  who  have  left  such  pleasant  memories 
behind  them. 

Among  the  thronging  footsteps  of  those  whose 
memories  still  haunt  lower  Broadway  are  scores  of  our 


44  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

old  merchants,  whose  names  I  recall  as  some  familiar 
circumstance  or  legend  of  old  business  days  brings 
them  back.  It  would  make  a  list  too  long  to  print  if 
all  could  be  remembered  and  given  the  honor  due 
them.  When  I  was  a  boy  the  familiar  names  of  the 
street  were  Aspinwall,  Grade,  Rowland,  Coit,  Minturn, 
Aymar,  Lenox,  Bruce,  Griswold,  Hoyt,  Kortright, 
Haight,  Storms,  Morgan,  Wilmerding,  King,  Ingoldsby, 
Broome,  Laight,  Dash,  Lorillard,  Henriques,  Wolfe, 
Ogden,  Crolius,  and — Eheu,  jam  satis!  Looked  at 
from  this  point  of  time,  they  seem  to  me  like  men  who 
magnified  their  position  and  strove  to  make  the  name 
of  merchant  great.  They  were  not  above  taking  their 
share  in  politics  and  doing  their  best  to  keep  politics 
pure.  The  first  alderman  elected  after  the  Revolu- 
tionary War  was  a  wealthy  shipping  merchant  of  this 
city,  John  Broome,  who  was  three  times  elected  Lieu- 
tenant-governor (and  the  last  time  without  opposition), 
and  in  whose  honor  one  of  the  counties  of  this  State 
was  named.  Since  his  time  another  merchant  and 
alderman,  E.  D.  Morgan,  has  been  made  Governor 
and  United  States  Senator;  but  he  was  not  a  native 
of  the  city,  and  brought  his  ambition  with  him  from 
Connecticut. 

The  Hall  of  Records,  the  old  sugar-house  on  Rose 
Street,  and  "  Sam  Fraunce's  tavern,"  on  Broad  Street, 
still  remain  to  recall  the  ante-Revolutionary  buildings 
of  this' city ;  but  I  have  heard  old  men  tell  of  the  time 
when  the  east  side  below  Fulton  Street  was  studded 
with  quaint,  antique  Dutch  buildings  that  had  served 
at  once  as  store  and  home  to  the  old-time  merchants. 
The  great  fire  of  1835  swept  away  nearly  all  of  these 
relics  of  the  city's  old  life,  the  last  that  remained  being 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  47 

located  on  William  Street,  opposite  Sloate  Lane,  and 
bearing  on  its  front,  in  sprawling  letters,  the  date  1690. 
Gabled  roofs,  wide  chimneys,  and  small  windows  were 
the  characteristics  of  these  dwellings.  Their  English 
successors  were  more  lofty  and  much  more  luxurious,  in 
many  cases  aspiring  to  marble  mantel-pieces  and  huge 
mirrors  in  heavy  mahogany  frames,  but  not  infrequently 
retaining  the  wide  fireplace,  with  its  setting  of  tiles 
that  illustrated  usually  the  stories  of  the  Bible.  A  fine, 
specimen  of  these  Scriptural  tiles,  in  blue  and  white, 
and  most  quaintly  original,  can  be  still  seen  in  the  old 
Van  Cortlandt  House,  above  Kingsbridge,  within  the 
area  of  Van  Cortlandt  Park.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  Park  Commissioners  will  preserve  this  ancient 
structure,  erected  in  1748,  which  vividly  recalls  the 
days  when  it  was  an  outpost  in  the  Neutral  Ground, 
and  was  occupied  alternately  by  Hessian  videttes  and 
patriot  scouts,  from  whose  doors  Washington  sallied 
forth  in  full  uniform  when  he  began  his  triumphal 
march  to  New  York  on  Evacuation  Day,  1783. 

Comparatively  little  business  was  done  on  the  east 
side  of  Broadway  below  the  City  Hall  Park  when  I 
first  began  to  observe  that  locality  as  a  boy.  There 
were  many  boarding-houses  there,  occupying  what  had 
been  the  stately  homes  of  the  Lows,  Hamiltons,  Dela- 
fields,  Livingstons,  Ludlows,  Le  Roys,  Hoffmans,  and 
Coldens.  There  were  several  hotels  there  also,  the 
Howard,  Tremont,  and  National.  But  that  side  of 
the  street  was  immortal  among  boys  as  containing 
Barnum's  American  Museum,  and  close  by  was  the 
store  of  John  N.  Genin,  the  hatter,  who  made  himself 
fame  and  fortune  by  bidding  off  at  a  high  premium 
the  first  seat- sold  for  the  first  concert  given  by  Jenny 


VIEW   IN   NEW   YORK,    1769. 

Lind.  My  grandmother  has  told  me  of  the  great  dry- 
goods  store  which  Jotham  Smith,  the  A.  T.  Stewart  of 
his  day,  opened  on  the  place  occupied  afterwards  by 
Barnum's  Museum,  and  of  its  removal  to  a  larger 
building  on  the  site  of  the  Astor  House,  where  all 
the  ladies  in  town  went  to  do  their  shopping.  But 
what  are  dry  goods  in  comparison  with  the  perennial 
pleasures  of  the  museum,  where  I  am  certain  that  I 
had  carefully  investigated  every  article  on  exhibition 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  49 

many  score  of  times,  and  had  no  more  doubt  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  club  that  killed  Captain  Cook  (de- 
stroyed by  fire  when  the  museum  was  burned,  but 
risen  again,  like  the  Phoenix,  from  its  own  ashes  and 
still  on  exhibition)  than  I  had  of  the  doctrines  con- 
tained in  the  Church  Catechism  ?  I  liked  also  to  visit 
Peale's  Museum,  on  Broadway,  opposite  the  City  Hall 
Park,  but  not  so  well  as  the  temple  of  curiosities  at 
the  corner  of  Ann  Street.  The  former  was  the  suc- 
cessor of  Scudder's  Museum,  that  occupied  the  old 
Alms  House  in  the  park,  and  was  the  first  of  its  kind 
in  the  city. 

In  the  days  when  I  was  on  familiar  terms  of  ac- 
quaintance with  the  museum,  not  a  few  of  my  school- 
mates lived  in  the  vicinity,  in  Beekman  and  Barclay 
streets,  and  on  the  streets  adjacent  to  the  Park,  and' 
upon  lower  Broadway.  Their  fathers  had  stores  or 
offices  down-town,  mostly  east  of  Broadway,  and  they 
liked  to  be  near  to  their  business,  as  their  fathers  had 
been  accustomed  to  live  before  them.  Business  men 
who  lived  up-town — that  is,  between  Broome  Street 
and  Union  Square — rarely  rode  to  their  offices.  They 
walked  and  enjoyed  the  exercise.  One  could  take  his 
stand  on  Broadway  on  a  pleasant  afternoon  and  call 
the  roll  among  passers-by  of  all  the  remarkable  men  in 
town.  It  came  back  to  me  the  other  afternoon — that 
busy  Broadway  panorama  of  forty  years  ago  came  back 
— when  I  saw  John  Jacob  Astor  striding  sturdily  down 
the  great  thoroughfare  towards  Wall  Street.  The 
" Astor  boys"  could  then  be  seen  daily  walking  from 
their  Prince  Street  office,  a  stalwart  pair,  pointed  out 
as  heirs  to  wealth  that  was  supposed  to  be  limitless, 
and  marvelled  at  as  miracles  of  industry  amid  the 
4 


5O  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

I 

temptations  of  money.  As  for  the  Vanderbilts,  they 
lived  quietly  on  East  Broadway,  and  the  Commodore 
and  his  brother  had  offices  at  62  Broadway,  where  they 
were  weaving  the  maritime  web  that  was  to  bring 
them  in  their  millions.  As  a  rule,  wealth  was  not  wor- 
shipped then.  The  old  Knickerbocker  spirit  still  ruled, 
and  demanded  blood  and  brains  as  the  standard  of 
admission  to  society.  Wealth  was  an  honorable  and 
most  comfortable  addition  thereto,  but  it  was  not  a 
sine  qua  non. 

As  I  pause  on  this  lower  end  of  the  City  Hall  Park, 
where  the  footsteps  seem  to  come  thickest,  I  recall 
some  names  among  the  old  auctioneers  of  the  city 
whose  associations,  either  through  school  or  church  or 
society  connections,  bring  back  forms  that  have  long 
been  dust.  The  names  are  those  of  Pell,  Hoffman, 
Lawrence,  Haggerty,  Draper,  Minturn,and  Hone,  and, 
earliest  of  all,  the  Bleeckers.  Fifty  or  sixty  years  ago 
the  auctioneers  were  commissioned  by  the  Governor 
of  the  State,  and  for  many  a  year  no  one  but  a  Demo- 
crat could  obtain  a  commission  at  Albany.  Smart 
young  Loco-focos  thus  managed  to  force  themselves 
into  solid  old  firms  and  line  their  pockets.  The  auc- 
tioneer was  obliged  to  give  a  bond  to  the  State  for  five 
thousand  dollars,  with  two  good  sureties,  that  he  would 
faithfully  pay  the  duties  accruing  on  his  sales.  These 
auction  duties  formed  one  of  the  important  items  in 
the  canal  fund,  and  amounted  to  several  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  As  the  lists  were  made  public,  it 
became  a  matter  of  pride  with  each  house  to  swell 
their  own  duties  to  as  large  a  sum  as  possible  by  way 
of  advertising  themselves.  The  auction  houses  then 
centred  in  Pearl,  in  the  vicinity  of  Wall  Street.  I 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  51 

recall  in  the  personnel  of  those  firms  Lindley  M.  Hoff- 
man, the  pink  of  courtesy,  and  a  most  devoted  church- 
man ;  ex-Mayor  Cornelius  W.  Lawrence,  a  genial  and 
genuine  Knickerbocker;  handsome  Philip  Hone,  An- 
thony J.  Bleecker,  who  afterwards  headed  the  list  of 
auctioneers,  and  David  Austen,  who,  as  knights  of  the 
hammer,  held  the  field  against  all  opponents. 

It  has  seemed  to  me,  as  I  linger  on  this  old  battle- 
ground of  business  generations,  that  our  city  takes  too 
little  pride  in  its  merchants.  More  is  known  about 
our  soldiers  and  our  politicians  than  about  our  com- 
mercial champions,  and  more  honor  is  paid  them.  Yet 


THE  JAIL    (NOW   THE    HALL    OF   RECORDS) 

if  one  could  gather  up  the  legends  and  traditions  of 
mercantile  lives,  it  would  be  found  more  interesting 
than  the  history  of  our  wars,  and  far  more  instructive. 


52  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

Around  their  old  homes  lingers  an  aroma  of  quiet  ro- 
mance which  history  ought  to  preserve.  A  sturdy, 
independent  folk,  they  enjoyed  life  thoroughly  in  their 
own  way,  and  made  the  most  of  it.  Nor  were  they  a 
solemn  people — far  from  it.  They  loved  a  joke,  even 
at  their  own  expense. 

When  old  John  Broome  kept  store  at  No.  6  Hanover 
Square  he  had  his  residence  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
same  house.  On  one  occasion,  after  a  customer  had 
called,  he  took  him  up-stairs  for  the  customary  glass 
of  wine.  Pianos  were  rare  in  those  days,  and  the 
stranger  had  never  seen  one ;  so  Mr.  Broome  called 
one  of  his  daughters  to  play  a  tune.  The  visitor  lis- 
tened with  delight,  but  kept  fumbling  uneasily  in  his 
pocket,  and  when  she  had  finished  the  tune  he  pulled 
a  half-dollar  out  and  laid  it  before  the  daughter.  She 
blushed,  laughed,  and  glanced  at  her  father,  who 
chuckled,  winked,  and  signed  to  her  to  keep  it. 

Odd  stories  used  to  be  told  of  eccentric  old  Stephen 
Storm,  who  was  in  business  in  Water  Street,  and  with 
one  of  whose  boys  I  went  to  school.  He  was  fond  of 
music,  and  used  to  start  the  tunes  at  Dr.  Matthews's 
church  in  Garden  Street  before  it  was  moved  up-town. 
It  occurred  to  Mr.  Storm  at  one  time  to  learn  to  play 
upon  the  fiddle,  and  accordingly  he  inserted  an  adver- 
tisement in  the  papers  informing  the  public  of  his  de- 
sire to  purchase  a  violin.  The  next  day  the  whole 
colored  colony  of  the  city  was  in  attendance  at  his 
store  with  violins  under  their  arms,  reinforced  by  a 
large  contingent  of  foreigners.  One  by  one  they  were 
solemnly  marshalled  in,  and  each  was  invited  to  play  a 
tune.  The  street  grew  distracted,  and  threatened  mob 
law.  After  a  hundred  or  more  instruments  had  been 


A  TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  53 

tested,  Mr.  Storm  dismissed  the  crowd,  without  his 
benediction,  however.  In  the  years  to  come  Mr.  Storm 
never  again  ventured  to  indulge  his  musical  taste,  at 
least  in  the  instrumental  line. 

The  name  recalls  the  old  Storm's  Hotel,  which  stood 
on  the  site  of  the  Staats  Zeitung  building,  and  was  a 
noted  hostlery  in  its  day.  Major  Noah  used  to  tell, 
with  many  a  chuckle,  a  story  that  associated  the  elder 
Astor  with  the  hotel.  One  of  the  old  fur  merchant's 
book-keepers  had  reached  the  age  of  sixty,  and  was  to 
be  retired.  Mr.  Astor  gave  him  the  choice  of  a  gift  of 
$1000  in  cash  or  a  promise  to  pay  his  board  bill  while 
he  lived.  The  superannuated  clerk  chose  the  promise 
to  pay  instead  of  the  cash,  and  lived  for  twenty  years 
at  the  Storm's  Hotel  at  the  expense  of  John  Jacob 
Astor,  who  failed  to  find  anything  amusing  in  his 
longevity. 

No  man  was  better  known  in  New  York  half  a  cen- 
tury ago  than  this  same  Major  Noah.  He  was  a  man 
of  wonderful  wit,  erudition,  and  social  and  political 
power.  The  contemporary  of  James  Watson  Webb 
and  the  older  editors,  whose  down-town  sanctums  were 
fully  as  dreary  as  the  dens  of  the  lawyers  and  business 
men  of  their  day,  he  wielded  a  pen  as  keen  as  his  wit. 
It  was  he  who,  when  Minister  to  Algiers,  persuaded 
the  Dey  to  make  a  most  favorable  treaty  with  the 
United  States,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  not  a  Chris- 
tian nation — which  he  proceeded  to  prove  by  reference 
to  the  Constitution.  The  Dey  was  delighted  to  get 
ahead  of  France  and  England,  to  whom  he  had  prom- 
ised to  sign  no  treaty  with  another  Christian  nation. 

But  the  tourist  cannot  linger  longer  with  the  ghosts 
of  the  past,  and  so  he  passes  on,  with  the  expression  of 


54 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


a  hope  that  the  time  is  not  distant  when  the  city  will 
build  monuments  to  commemorate  its  commercial  he- 
roes, and  rescue  the  names  of  Livingston  and  Lewis 
and  Broome  and  their  business  peers  from  oblivion. 
Some  day  the  ghostly  cadence  of  their  footsteps  will 
cease  on  our  busy  streets,  when  we,  who  are  gray-haired 
and  learned  about  them  when  young,  shall  have  fol- 
lowed also  to  their  rest. 


SEAL  OF  NEW   YORK   CITY 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  55 


CHAPTER    VI 

BROADWAY  IN  SIMPLER  DAYS — AMONG  THE  OLD-TIME  THEATRES — MAY 
MEETINGS  AT  THE  TABERNACLE — THE  FIRST  SEWING-MACHINE — 
BROADWAY  GARDENS  AND  CHURCHES— A  NIGHT  WITH  CHRISTY'S 
MINSTRELS — THE  RAVELS  AT  NIBLO'S 

"  Do  you  know,"  I  said  to  a  friend,  recently,  as  we 
dived  into  a  crowded  train  on  the  elevated  railroad,  "  I 
think  we  take  less  exercise  than  we  did  a  generation 
ago,  and  are  degenerating?  In  the  matter  of  legs  I  am 
quite  sure  the  decadence  must  be  marked.  The  re- 
vived fashion  of  knee-breeches,  now  impending,  will 
find  us  unable  to  cope  with  the  traditionary  anatomies 
of  stalwart  George  Washington,  who  was  a  prodigious 
jumper,  and  sturdy  John  Adams,  whose  lower  limbs 
were  solid  as  the  granite  hills  that  stood  around  his 
home.  The  art  of  walking  has  gone  out  of  fashion 
with  us,  and  it  has  operated  to  our  physical  loss." 

"  Do  you  know,"  calmly  responded  my  friend,  "  I 
think  you  are  growing  old,  and,  as  is  the  way  with  all 
who  cultivate  a  sere  and  yellow  acquaintance  with  old 
Father  Time,  are  learning  to  grumble  at  the  present, 
just  because  it  is  somewhat  juvenile?" 

Can  this  be  true  ?  My  old  friend  Bowie  Dash  re- 
marked to  a  common  acquaintance  the  other  day  that, 
judging  by  my  reminiscences,  I  must  be  somewhere  in 
the  neighborhood  of  ninety -five.  As  to  Mr.  Dash's 
suggestion  of  age,  I  quite  scorn  it.  Did  not  the  same 
ruler  warm  us  up,  anatomically  and  intellectually, 


56  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

when  we  two  were  neophytes  in  the  temple  of  learn- 
ing in  Franklin  Street,  over  which  Mr.  Jeremiah  J. 
Greenough  presided  ?  Indeed,  we  are  both  young— 
comparatively.  Yet  a  newer  generation  can  behold  in 
our  reminiscences,  as  in  a  mirror,  the  day  when  street- 
cars were  unknown,  omnibuses  a  rarity,  and  when,  in 
the  absence  of  furnaces,  heaters,  and  self  -  feeding 
stoves,  the  boy  was  solemnly  admonished,  as  winter 
drew  nigh,  that  pedestrian  exercise  was  the  best  thing 
to  keep  his  blood  in  circulation  and  help  him  defy 
the  blasts  of  December. 

Everybody  walked  to  and  from  business  when  I  was 
a  boy.  That  is,  everybody  except  those  who  lived  in 
the  outskirts  of  Greenwich  Village  and  in  Chelsea, 
who  went  by  stages,  and  except  a  few  invalids  and 
octogenarians.  It  told  against  a  man  to  pamper  him- 
self with  sixpenny  rides  in  an  omnibus.  Besides,  one 
always  counted  on  meeting  acquaintances  upon  the 
Broadway  promenade  at  certain  hours,  and  the  hearty 
greetings  of  one's  elders  were  worth  something,  as  we 
juniors  thought.  It  was  a  physical  pleasure  to  throw 
one's  self  into  the  tide  of  human  life  that  swept  up 
the  great  central  thoroughfare  every  afternoon,  and  to 
strike  out  homeward  with  it.  The  white-haired  crest 
upon  the  human  wave  disappeared  after  a  while  as  the 
club-house,  the  down-town  home,  or  the  political  head- 
quarters drew  it  in,  and  then,  rosy  and  radiant,  a  re- 
flex tide  of  feminine  loveliness  swept  in,  and  the  walk 
became  more  pleasant  than  ever.  Yes,  everybody 
walked  in  those  days,  and,  as  I  grew  out  of  boyhood 
towards  manhood,  I  used  to  think  that  the  rosebud 
garden  of  Broadway  on  a  crisp  autumn  afternoon  was 
lovely  beyond  compare.  The  tide  of  pedestrians  be- 


A  TOUR   AROUND  -NEW    YORK  57 

gan  noticeably  to  diverge  to  the  left  at  Chambers 
Street,  and  both  to  right  and  left  above  Canal  Street, 
making  decided  detours  towards  St.  John's  Park  and 
Washington  Square  in  turn,  and  growing  more  and 
more  scattered  as  it  approached  the  up  -  town  neigh- 
borhood above  Great  Jones  Street  and  Astor  Place. 

I  like  still  on  brisk  autumn  days  to  turn  my  face  to 
Union  Square,  and  take  up  my  march  from  the  neigh- 
borhood of  old  St.  Paul's.  If  some  one  is  with  me  who 
is  interested  in  my  gray -haired  garrulity  about  other 
days,  it  makes  the  way  lighter.  But  I  never  lack  com- 
pany. Indeed,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  when 
I  am  alone  that  I  have  most  companionship.  As  I 
walk  along,  the  ghosts  of  other  days  trip  out  to  see 
me.  They  are  no  noisome  apparitions,  but  gentle, 
sweet-voiced  spirits,  whose  eyes  are  filled  with  tender 
recollections,  and  whose  garments  bear  the  scent  of 
the  roses  and  hyacinths  of  many  years  ago.  From 
unexpected  spots  they  dart  out  to  give  me  greeting 
and  to  bring  to  my  recollection  little  occurrences  long 
forgotten,  but  pleasant  to  recall.  In  this  spot  they 
recall  a  rosy  night  at  the  theatre ;  there  they  bring 
back  the  tender  recollection  of  a  school  friend  who  has 
been  dust  and  ashes  these  five  and  thirty  years;  here 
they  call  up  Sunday-school  days,  and  the  prolonged 
and  inevitable  Sunday  services  beneath  the  stately 
spire  of  St.  John's  Chapel;  here  again,  just  around 
that  corner,  lived  the  incarnate  inspiration  of  my  first 
valentine,  whose  clustering  curls  never  lived  to  sleep 
on  any  other  breast  than  Mother  Earth's ;  and  there, 
too,  opposite  the  St.  Nicholas,  were  the  mystic  rooms 
in  which  our  college  secret  society  met  to  initiate 
white-faced  neophytes  into  the  mysteries  of  sworn  fra- 


ST.   PAUL'S   CHAPEL 

ternity,  while  all  around  the  pavement  echoes  to  the 
feet  which  are  silent  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  but  to 
my  ears  are  instinct  with  a  life  that  can  never  die. 
Come  with  me,  then,  most  patient  reader,  and  as  we 
walk  up  Broadway  this  afternoon,  close  your  eyes  to 
present  surroundings,  and  let  me  picture  the  thorough- 


A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW   YORK  59 

fare  as  it  looked  forty  years  ago,  when  I  strolled  up 
from  a  school-mate's  home  below  the  City  Hall  Park, 
a  rosy-cheeked  boy  in  old-fashioned  roundabout  and 
cap. 

St.  Paul's  Church  has  been  growing  smaller  of  late 
years,  or  is  it  the  effect  of  the  great  buildings  that  sur- 
round it?  It  towered  up  above  all  the  neighborhood 
when  I  was  a  boy,  and  at  one  time  I  had  an  uncanny 
dread  of  the  marble  figure  of  St.  Paul  above  the  por- 
tico, which  was  said  to  come  down  and  walk  the  street 
"when  it  heard  the  clock  strike  twelve  at  midnight  of 
St.  Paul's  Day."  The  late  William  E.  Dodge,  who 
was  so  earnest  a  man  that  he  never  appreciated  a 
joke,  in  the  course  of  a  familiar  lecture  to  some  east- 
side  youth  said  that  his  nurse  once  told  him  that  that 
same  figure  of  St.  Paul  "came  down  and  walked 
around  the  streets  at  night,"  thus  wickedly  deceiving 
him,  and  Mr.  Dodge  used  the  occasion  to  warn  his 
young  friends  against  telling  falsehoods. 

Barnum's  Museum,  which  faced  St.  Paul's  Church 
at  the  corner  of  Ann  Street,  has  disappeared  long 
since,  and  I  fear  that  I  have  never  ceased  to  mourn 
its  loss.  Wasn't  it  a  wonderful  place,  though?  The 
oval  pictures  of  impossible  birds  and  beasts  that  stood 
between  the  outside  windows  were  a  scientific  specta- 
cle in  themselves.  But  the  interior  was  one  vast  tem- 
ple of  wonder,  and  I  never  would  have  forgiven  the 
man  who  should  prove  to  me  that  the  club  which 
killed  Captain  Cook  was  not  genuine ;  that  Joyce 
Heth  had  not  held  baby  George  Washington  in  her 
black  arms ;  and  that  the  dark,  dank  little  amphithe- 
atre was  not  a  dramatic  paradise,  in  which  perform- 
ances were  given  upon  a  cramped  and  rather  dirty 


60  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

stage  through  so  much  of  the  day  that  Artemus  Ward 
said  Barnum's  actors  could  be  seen  towards  7  A.M. 
walking  down  Broadway  to  work,  with  their  tin  din- 
ner-pails in  hand. 

Broadway,  between  the  Astor  House  and  Chambers 
Street,  has  changed  less  in  forty  years  than  almost 
any  other  portion  of  the  city.  The  park  has  under- 
gone much  more  change.  The  Post-office  has  blotted 
out  an  oasis  of  grass  and  trees,  and  with  the  old  iron 
fence  a  small  army  of  hucksters  in  gingerbread  and 
candy  have  disappeared.  On  the  Broadway  side  of 
the  park  stood  Peale's  Museum.  I  remember  only 
one  thing  about  it :  The  largest  room  contained  the 
skeleton  of  a  mastodon,  at  whose  feet  stood  the  tiny 
skeleton  of  a  mouse.  Opposite  the  museum,  on  Park 
Row,  the  famous  Park  Theatre  was  located.  I  stood 
in  the  City  Hall  Park  one  night  and  watched  its  roof- 
tree  fall  into  the  flames  that  devoured  the  building. 
An  engine  dashing  along  the  sidewalk  of  Broadway 
had  nearly  run  over  me  as  I  came.  We  all  ran  to  fires 
in  those  days,  and  the  engines  took  the  sidewalk  or 
the  street,  just  as  suited  their  convenience.  I  never 
was  inside  the  Park  Theatre,  but  how  have  I  enjoyed 
Aminidnb  Sleek  and  Captain  Cuttle  at  Burton's  Thea- 
tre in  Chambers  Street, 

At  one  corner  of  (Chambers  Street  the  Stewart 
Building  is  a  modern  innovation.  It  displaced,  among 
other  structures,  famous  Washington  Hall,  the  polit- 
ical foe  of  Tammany  Hall,  built  by  the  Federalists, 
and  occupied  as  their  fighting  headquarters  for  many 
years.  The  building  on  the  opposite  corner  of  Cham- 
bers Street  and  Broadway  was  once  the  Irving  House, 
a  fashionable  hostlery,  but  it  has  an  older  memory  for 


WASHINGTON    HALL 


some  of  us  graybeards.  There  at  one  time  John  C. 
Colt  had  his  office,  and  there  he  murdered  Adams,  the 
printer  who  was  getting  out  a  work  on  book-keeping 
for  him.  It  was  the  first  tragedy  I  had  ever  been  able 
to  read  about,  and  I  remember  vividly  all  the  details 
of  the  body  that  was  packed  and  shipped  to  South 
America;  that  by  adverse  winds  was  brought  ashore, 
and  would  have  brought  the  murderer  to  the  scaffold 
had  he  not  committed  suicide  on  the  morning  of  the 
day  set  for  his  execution.  Years  and  years  after- 
wards I  met  Col.  Samuel  Colt,  who  always  favored  the 
rumor  that  his  brother  had  escaped  to  France,  and 
that  the  body  of  a  pauper  convict  had  been  substi- 


64  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

tuted  to  deceive  the  authorities.  "  Is  your  brother 
John  living  in  France?"  asked  a  curious  Hartford  man. 
The  answer  was  prompt  and  characteristic:  "That  is 
something  which  only  God  Almighty  and  Sam  Colt 
know." 

Somewhere  near  Duane  Street,  on  Broadway,  where 
modern  progress  has  as  yet  made  little  change  in  the 
buildings,  the  first  sewing-machine  was  exhibited.  A 
young  girl  used  to  sit  in  the  window  and  work  the 
rather  primitive  machinery,  and  she  actually  seemed 
to  sew.  Everybody  watched  the  process  with  inter- 
est, but  all  regarded  it  as  a  toy,  and  impracticable  for 
household  use.  The  ladies  set  their  faces  resolutely 
against  it.  They  would  have  nothing  but  hand-made 
goods.  Philanthropy  argued  at  all  our  tables,  as  I  re- 
member, that  the  machine  would  take  the  bread  out 
of  the  mouths  of  the  working-women.  So  the  pretty 
girl  kept  the  pedals  going  in  the  window,  month  in 
and  month  out,  and  Wall  Street  was  not  sharp  enough 
to  see  that  there  was  a  fortune  in  the  "  toy."  It  might 
be  made  to  sew  a  ruffle — yes,  no  doubt  this  had  been 
done  —  but  to  argue  that  it  could  make  a  suit  of 
clothes  or  do  the  sewing  for  a  household  was  non- 
sense. 

Just  above  stood  the  old  New  York  Hospital,  its 
green  campus,  filled  with  stately  trees,  facing  Pearl 
Street.  In  the  rear  were  the  gray  granite  buildings 
which  had  been  erected  before  the  Revolutionary  War, 
and  which  Lord  Howe  had  surrounded  with  fortifica- 
tions. It  always  seemed  a  pity  to  destroy  this  pretty 
green  spot,  but  perhaps  it  was  inevitable.  Its  de- 
struction followed  the  obliteration  of  the  campus  of 
Columbia  College  at  Park  Place,  and  it  was  pitiable  to 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK  6$ 

watch  the  felling  of  the  sturdy  old  trees  that  at  both 
these  points  had  withstood  the  storms  of  a  century, 
and  had  looked  down  upon  the  camp-fires  alike  of  the 
redcoat  of  England  and  the  buff  and  blue  soldier  of 
the  Continental  Congress.  Other  obliterations  were 
more  natural.  Here,  on  the  east  side  of  Broadway, 
between  Pearl  and  Anthony,  stood  the  Broadway- 
Theatre,  beloved  of  fashion  in  its  day ;  on  the  next 
block  was  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  the  camping- 
ground  of  the  May  meetings,  where  I  stole  in  often  to 
hear  the  abolitionists  speak  when  I  was  a  boy — Wen- 
dell Phillips,  Gerrit  Smith,  and  the  lovely  little  white- 
haired  Quakeress,  Lucretia  Mott.  I  thought  these 
last  a  horrible  crew  of  fanatics,  for  I  had  been  bred  in 
the  doctrine  that  slavery  was  no  sin  ;  but  there  was  a 
wonderful  fascination  for  me  in  those  gatherings  of 
long-haired,  wild -eyed  agitators.  Time  works  won- 
ders, and  yet  the  wildest  prophet  would  not  have  vent- 
ured to  predict  that  the  boy  who  looked  upon  an 
abolitionist  as  a  special  ally  of  the  Evil  One  would 
one  day  command  a  regiment  marching  through  this 
city  and  through  the  border  States  to  -the  fields  of  the 
South,  to  strike  the  shackles  from  the  limbs  of  the 
enslaved  African. 

Between  Leonard  Street  and  Catharine  Lane  stood 
the  Society  Library  building,  a  handsome  structure  in 
its  day,  which  afterwards  gave  place  to  the  publishing 
house  of  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  At  Leonard  Street  there 
was  a  hotel  known  as  the  Carleton  House;  and  there 
was  another  at  Walker  Street,  known  as  Florence's 
Hotel ;  and  below,  on  the  other  side,  at  the  north  cor- 
ner of  Franklin  Street,  was  the  famous  Taylor's  res- 
taurant, frequented  by  all  the  society  belles  of  the  day. 

5 


66  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

More  than  one  local  romance  has  made  Taylor's  its 
scene  of  fashionable  dissipation.  Fashion  has  moved 
miles  up-town  since  then,  and  would  now  vote  Tay- 
lor's a  very  commonplace  affair.  But  a  much  more 
attractive  place  in  the  early  part  of  the  forties  was 
Contoit's  Garden,  which  for  more  than  a  generation 
occupied  a  large  share  of  the  block  between  Franklin 
and  Leonard  streets.  Its  plain  wooden  entrance,  bear- 
ing the  legend,  "  New  York  Garden,"  was  overshad- 
owed with  trees,  and  inside,  were  shady  nooks,  dimly 
lit  by  colored  lanterns,  where  the  young  woman  of  the 
period  found  it  pleasant  to  sip  her  cream  and  listen 
to  the  compliments  of  the  young  man  of  the  times. 
Many  a  match  was  made  in  these  old  gardens,  which 
to-day  would,  seem  to  the  eye  but  the  acme  of  rural 
simplicity,  but  to  the  older  city  offered  all  that  was 
enjoyable  on  a  moonlight  night  in  the  Island  of  Man- 
hattan. 

Crossing  Canal  Street — where  changes  are  slow  in 
coming  on  account  of  the  low-lying 'nature  of  the  land 
— as  soon  as  one  begins  to  mount  the  grade  beyond 
Howard  Street,  the  tokens  of  improvement  lie  thick 
on  every  side.  All  the  landmarks  have  disappeared 
save  one — the  artistic  beauty  of  Grace  Church  in  the 
distance.  That  edifice  is  just  as  fresh  and  attractive 
to  the  eye  as  when  its  Gothic  walls  were  first  reared— 
more  than  forty  years  ago.  Other  churches  along  the 
line  have  disappeared.  Old  St.  Thomas's,  which  for 
many  years  stood  gray  and  venerable  at  the  corner  of 
Broadway  and  Houston  Street,  has  long  since  given 
place  to  stores,  and  few  remember  where,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  way,  Dr.  Chapin  ministered  to  large  con- 
gregations. The  church  was  situated  at  548  Broad- 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  69 

way.  Opposite,  at  563,  the  Anglo-American  Church 
of  St.  George  the  Martyr  held  forth,  to  which  we  boys 
of  Trinity  choir  had  contributed  by  singing  at  a  con- 
cert, but  which  afterwards,  I  believe,  died  a  lingering 
death.  The  Church  of  the  Messiah  was  at  724  Broad- 
way. But  the  churches  of  that  period  for  the  most  part 
kept  out  of  Broadway,  and  preferred  the  seclusion  of 
the  more  quiet  side  streets. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  old-time  theatres,  and  as  I  pass 
the  site  of  Mechanics'  Hall  a  whole  host  of  memories 
comes  trooping  out,  and  with  them  comes  the  echo  of 
old  plantation  songs,  most  of  which  were  first  heard 
here.  It  was  on  this  spot  that  Christy's  Minstrels 
used  to  entertain  the  older  New  York  in  a  decorously 
jovial  manner.  There  was  none  of  the  pinchbeck 
glare  of  modern  dance-and-song  minstrelsy,  but  there 
was  instead  the  song  that  wakened  the  tenderest  chords 
of  the  heart  and  the  joke  that  was  not  yet  worn  thread- 
bare. It  happened  that  when  I  was  twelve  years  old, 
or  perhaps  a  little  older,  I  was  deputed  at  home  to 
take  six  or  eight  children  to  Christy's.  I  was  the  old- 
est boy  in  the  crowd,  and  hence  felt  myself  the  man 
of  the  deputation.  But  there  was  a  thorn  to  my  rose. 
My  very  small  brother,  aged  five,  was  to  go,  in  charge 
of  a  stately  colored  girl  of  eighteen,  whom  my  father 
had  brought  from  the  West  Indies.  I  remember  be- 
ing just  goose  enough  to  be  half  ashamed  to  be  seen 
with  Ancilla  in  the  street,  though  she  was  straight  and 
handsome  as  an  Indian  princess  in  her  bright  turban, 
and  afterwards  captivated  and  married  a  wealthy  white 
man  in  California.  At  the  ticket-office  they  refused  to 
let  us  in  because  there  was  a  "  nigger  "  in  the  crowd  of 
juveniles.  The  cold  sweat  was  standing  at  every  pore 


/O  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW   YORK 

in  my  body,  when  there  chanced  along  a  belated  mem- 
ber of  the  troupe,  who  took  my  money,  led  us  through 
the  room  in  which  the  company  were  being  "  corked," 
and  seated  us  in  the  little  side  orchestra  gallery  which 
overlooked  the  long  hall.  There  we  were  the  observed 
of  all  observers.  The  minstrels  all  cracked  their  jokes 
at  Ancilla,  who  leaned  over  the  orchestra  rail  and 
grinned  back  to  a  delighted  audience,  who  applauded 
her  shrieks  of  laughter  to  the  echo.  To  me  it  was  an 
evening  of  prolonged  and  undiluted  misery,  for  which 
I  learned  to  despise  myself  afterwards.  But  it  all  comes 
back  to  me  this  afternoon  as  I  walk  by  the  spot,  re- 
membering that  Ancilla  and  I  are  the  only  survivors 
of  the  little  party  that  filled  the  Mechanics'  Hall  or- 
chestra gallery  that  evening. 

How  I  would  like  to  go  to  Christy's  again,  and  what 
a  treat  it  would  be  to  enter  the  old  Niblo's  Garden  and 
see  the  Ravels  in  their  wonderful  pantomimes !  Sure- 
ly, no  place  since  then  has  held  so  much  enjoyment 
for  youth  who  have  outgrown  the  museum,  and  yet 
have  scarcely  grown  up  to  Shakespeare.  And  yet  I 
must  not  forget  the  Broadway  Theatre,  where,  as  a 
boy  in  close  jacket,  I  remember  to  have  thoroughly 
enjoyed  Hackett's  masterly  representation  of  Falstaff. 
He  first  opened  to  me  the  delights  of  Shakespeare — a 
debt  which  I  shall  ever  owe  him.  Peace  to  his  ashes  ! 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  I  can  recall  now  every  trick 
of  the  Ravels,  every  oddity  of  their  marvellous  panto- 
mime, every  strange  costume,  from  crowned  king  to 
skeleton  death.  Were  ever  nights  so  enjoyable  to  us 
old  boys  as  those  we  passed  in  trying  to  detect  the 
legerdemain  that  cheated  our  eyes?  And  how  quick- 
ly they  passed,  and  how  rare  were  these  treats  in  the 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  71 

rigid  economy  of  a  scholar's  life  of  years  ago !  Why, 
it  is  a  delight  even  to  remember  them — a  remark  which 
I  think  one  Horace,  of  collegiate  class-room  memory, 
has  previously  made  in  much  the  same  connection. 

I  was  at  Niblo's  Garden  the  night  that  the  Ravels 
opened  there,  as  I  recall  by  the  incident  that  the  scen- 
ery refused  to  work  in  the  last  act,  and  left  a  massive 
brick  wall  as  a  rear  view  of  Hades.  An  uncle  of  mine, 
a  visitor  to  New  York  from  the  rural  regions  of  Mis- 
souri, had  taken  me  there,  and  when  the  ballet  ap- 
peared I  noticed  that  he  cohered  his  eyes  with  his  hat 
and  blushed.  When  I  asked  him  what  was  the  mat- 
ter, he  replied  that  "  it  beat  the  West  all  to  pieces." 
To  a  New  York  boy  his  Western  innocence  rather  lent 
flavor  to  the  entertainment,  which  in  fact  was  perfect- 
ly respectable,  and  such  as  the  modern  theatre-goer 
might  have  thought  to  be  a  trifle  slow  in  its  spectacu- 
lar effects.  I  only  wish  that  I  could  carry  to  the  the- 
atre of  to-day  the  same  zest  that  I  brought  to  old 
Niblo's,  and  that  the  world  of  amusement-goers  were 
as  easily  pleased. 

But  we  have  really  not  yet  reached  Niblo's  Garden 
in  our  walk,  and  the  shades  of  evening  begin  to  fall  as 
we  stand  just  beyond  the  stream  that  once  swept  down 
from  the  Collect  Pond  to  the  Hudson  River  and  on 
the  edge  of  the  Lispenard  Meadows.  Stream  and 
swamp  have  disappeared,  and  stately  rows  of  houses 
have  taken  their  places,  but  the  old  student  of  New 
York's  history  knows  the  ground  on  which  he  stands, 
and  it  has  wonderfully  pleasant  recollections  for  him. 
To-morrow  we  will  take  up  our  march  again. 

To  the  Easy  Chair  of  Harper  s  Magazine,  of  whom 
the  writer  has  pleasant  personal  memories  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1867-68,  Fe- 


72  A   TOUR  AROUND  NEW   YORK 

lix  Oldboy  desires  to  return  thanks  for  a  most  appreci- 
ative notice  in  a  recent  number  of  that  periodical.  It 
is  a  double  delight  to  receive  such  a  compliment  from 
the  author  of  The  Potiphar  Papers,  to  whom,  in  com- 
mon with  a  generation  of  New  Yorkers,  the  writer  is 


LISPENARD   MEADOWS 


indebted  for  the  most  suggestive  and  brilliant  society 
sketch  to  which  New  York's  literary  brain  has  given 
birth.  The  pleasure  of  writing  these  reminiscences  of 
a  day  not  yet  so  distant  but  that  it  seems  like  yester- 
day is  heightened  by  the  interest  manifested  in  many 
different  quarters,  and  encourages  the  writer  to  grasp 
his  pilgrim  staff  again  and  proceed  upon  his  tour. 


A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK  73 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  POETRY  OF  EVERY-DAY  LIFE — A  PROTEST  AGAINST  THE  GOTH — 
MY  GRANDMOTHER'S  HOME — AN  ERA  WITHOUT  LUXURIES — STATE- 
LY MANNERS  OF  THE  PAST 

I  HAVE  been  visited  by  the  Goths  and  Vandals,  and 
I  want  to  stop  right  here— in  sight  of  Kalckhook  Hill 
and  the  Lispenard  Swamp — and  enter  my  solemn  pro- 
test against  them. 

"  Oldboy,"  said  the  chief  of  the  invaders,  with  a 
Vandal  familiarity  which  I  detest,  for  I  am  old-fash- 
ioned enough  to  like  to  have  the  "  Mr."  prefixed  to 
my  name,  not  so  much  for  being  a  Magister  Artium 
in  the  past  as  for  having  been  educated  in  the  creed 
which  makes  the  finer  courtesies  of  life  the  touchstone 
of  the  gentleman — "  Oldboy,  you  can't  make  a  silver 
whistle  out  of  a  sow's  ear — you  can't  put  any  poetry 
into  prosaic,  old,  money-making  New  York." 

To  which  I  respond  with  proper  mildness  that  the 
proposition  in  regard  to  any  creative  act  of  mine  is 
perfectly  true,  since  I  am  but  a  quiet  chronicler  in  the 
city's  by-ways,  but  that  the  poetry  is  there  none  the 
less.  In  the  years  in  which  my  feet  have  trodden 
these  streets  I  have  learned  to  love  them,  and  out  of 
this  love  has  grown  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
dower  this  city  acquired  from  nature  and  from  his- 
tory, as  well  as  with  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  its  peo- 
ple. Truly,  there  is  no  need  of  any  pen  attempting 
to  make  poetry  of  the  wonderful  epic  that  began  with 


THE    FEDERAL    HALL    IN   WALL    STREET 


the  ripples  that  the  Halve  Maen  carved  in  the  still 
waters  of  a  bay  crossed  as  yet  only  by  the  canoes  of 
the  Manhadoes. 

No  poetry  here  ?  Why,  there  is  nothing  but  poetry 
in  the  story  of  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  the  pioneer  Gov- 
ernor, and  Petrus  Stuyvesant,  the  exile  of  the  Bouwe- 
rie ;  in  Jacob  Leisler,  first  martyr  to  popular  liberties, 
and  Captain  Kidd,  the  piratical  protege"  of  an  earl ;  in 
the  rise  of  the  Liberty  Boys,  and  their  battle  of  Gold- 
en Hill,  in  which  the  first  blood  of  the  Revolution  was 
shed  —before  the  Boston  massacre  occurred — and  in 


A  TOUR  AROUND    NEW   YORK  75 

the  overthrow  of  Rivington's  royal  printing-press ;  in 
Washington,  at  the  head  of  his  "  old  Continentals," 
listening  to  the  reading  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence at  the  Commons,  and  in  Putnam's  dusty 
flight  from  the  Bowling  Green  to  the  heights  of  Spuy- 
ten  Duyvel ;  in  the  defeat  at  Fort  Washington  and 
the  victory  at  Harlem  Plains ;  in  the  original  Evacua- 
tion Day  and  the  inauguration  of  the  first  President  ; 
in  the  republican  life  of  the  city  from  her  first  hour  of 
freedom  from  a  royal  yoke  up  to  the  day  in  which  she 
rejected  at  the  polls  the  monstrous  system  of  social- 
ism that  foreign  craft  sought  to  impose  upon  her  chil- 
dren. 

To  me  it  is  all  a  sweet  and  stately  epic,  and  espe- 
cially  tender  is  the  strain  that  tells  of  the  day  when  I 
was  young.  For  was  there  no  poetry  in  the  life  of  the 
old  New  Yorker  of  that  day,  who  feared  God  and  was 
no  brawler?  No  poetry  in  the  clean,  civic  life  that 
made  duty  its  goal,  and  left  the  clamor  about  rights 
to  cure  itself;  that  gave  peace  to  our  borders  for  six 
days  of  the  week  and  a  quiet  Sabbath  on  the  seventh? 
When  he  went  to  church  and  took  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren with  him,  at  night  knelt  down  to  pray  at  his 
fireside  with  his  family  around  him,  and  by  day  was 
honest  and  straightforward,  as  well  as  shrewd  and  in- 
dustrious, was  the  citizen  of  New  York  less  poetical 
than  if  he  had  worn  a  cavalier's  sword  and  made  the 
street  a  daily  battle-field?  Was  there  no  poetry  in 
the  soul  of  the  smooth-faced  youth  who  went  down- 
town in  the  early  morning  and  swept  out  his  employ, 
er's  store,  in  the  fear  of  God,  and  even  as  he  did  it  let 
his  thoughts  wander  to  the  unpretentious  little  house 
under  whose  roof  he  had  made  his  early  decorous  visit 


76  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 

last  night  to  the  maiden  of  his  choice  and  his  hopes? 
No  poetry  in  the  modest  damsel,  who,  prayer-book 
and  handkerchief  in  hand,  walked  so  demurely  to 
church  that  only  a  pink  flush  of  the  cheek  denoted 
that  she  knew  whose  ringing  step  was  coming  near 
her,  and  who  was  none,  the  less  lovely  that  she  had 
never  been  to  public  ball  and  opera,  and  did  not  know 
a  dado  from  a  frieze?  Then  there  is  none  in  the  trees 
that  grow  as  the  Everlasting  Will  appoints ;  in  the 
birds  who  wing  their  viewless  paths  in  ordained  or- 
bits ;  in  the  flowers  that  blossom  sweet  and  fair  in 
their  generation ;  in  the  lichens  and  mosses  that  cover 
the  decay  of  nature,  and  the  green  leaf  put  forth  in 
the  spring  like  a  dove  from  the  great  brown  ark  of  the 
earth  to  herald  the  coming  resurrection. 

Go  to,  O  Vandal  doubter !  It  is  all  poetry  as  I  look 
back.  I  see  the  poetry  of  quiet  and  unpretentious  but 
happy  homes,  sheltered  under  long  lines  of  waving 
trees,  now  exterminated ;  of  green  fields  at  Blooming- 
dale,  easily  reached  in  a  stroll,  and  of  country  villas 
between  Kip's  Bay  and  Harlem  River;  of  farms  and 
rustic  bowers  that  dotted  the  upper  part  of  the  isl- 
and, and  gave  pleasant  contrast  to  the  dusty  streets  of 
the  city  below ;  of  the  wild  and  rugged  scenery  of 
McGowan's  Pass  and  Breakneck  Hill;  of  the  mossy 
sides  of  old  earthworks  which  shelter  now  only  the 
daisy  and  the  buttercup,  but  once  encircled  the  men  of 
the  Revolution;  of  the  ancient  wooden  bridges  that  led 
to  the  serenely  rural  regions  of  Westchester  County, 
and  that  served  to  recall  in  precept  and  example  the 
ancient  Kissing  Bridge  of  our  Knickerbocker  ancestry. 

The  life  of  the  merchant  of  that  day  might  seem 
commonplace  and  dull,  but  it  was  not.  If  he  lacked 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK  77 

the  push  and  hurry  of  to-day,  the  aesthetic  office,  and 
fashionable  business  hours,  he  had  his  compensations. 
There  was  poetry  in  our  lost  and  forgotten  industries. 
The  stately  ships  that  then  carried  our  flag  lay  at  ev- 
ery wharf,  and  the  offices  were  redolent  with  spices 
from  the  East,  and  sugars  from  the  Indies  and  teas 
from  Cathay ;  and  the  bluff  down-east  captains  came 
back  with  wonderful  offerings  of  coral  and  shells  and 
birds  and  fruit  for  the  wives  and  children  of  the  ships' 
owners.  The  visitor  to  those  plain,  prosaic  places  of 
business  found  himself  swept  thousands  of  miles  away 
by  their  sights  and  scents ;  and  when  he  came  to  talk 
with  the  men  who  sent  out  the  busy  fleets,  he  found 
that  they  knew  the  story  of  the  ship  and  exulted  in 
its  record.  He  rejoiced,  too,  in  the  swift  clippers  that 
glided  off  the  stocks  in  our  ship-yards  on  the  east  side 
and  went  out  upon  the  ocean  to  distance  the  fleets  of 
the  world  ;  in  the  ring  and  rattle  of  a  thousand  ham- 
mers in  yards  that  are  now  deserted  and  have  forgot- 
ten the  step  of  the  American  mechanic ;  in  the  rival 
steamboats  that  raced  up  and  down  the  Hudson  in  the 
days  before  the  railroads  on  that  river  were  built,  and 
in  the  line  of  rapid  but  unfortunate  steamships  that 
carried  our  flag  from  New  York  to  Liverpool  and  did 
their  best  to  keep  it  afloat.  But  he  had  other  loves, 
too — his'  home,  his  church,  his  Shakespeare  Club,  and 
his  whist-party,  the  hospitable  gathering  of  friends  at 
his  home,  without  display  and  newspaper  publication, 
his  children — whom  he  brought  up  to  look  upon  him 
as  their  trusted  adviser — his  cheery  picnics  at  Elysian 
Fields,  and  his  piscatorial  rambles  in  search  of  Harlem 
River  flounders — yes,  and  he  was  even  known  to  be  not 
ashamed  of  loving  his  wife.  The  invisible  poet  was 


78  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

patriotic,  too,  and  when  the  call  came  for  troops  to 
march  to  distant  Mexico,  the  dull  coat  of  the  man  of 
business  flashed  out  splendid  fires  of  patriotism. 

It  is  for  these  reasons  that  I  protest  against  the 
atrocious  sentiment  of  the  Goth.  I  look  back  and  see 
the  oriole  swinging  on  the  swaying  branch  of  the  syc- 
amore in  the  old  city  streets,  and  the  bluebird  flying 
athwart  the  white  blossoms  of  the  horse-chestnut,  and 
the  robin  building  her  nest  in  the  willow  ;  under  the 
green  trees  of  the  forgotten  old  park  my  little  sisters 
(who  began  to  walk  in  fields  of  imperishable  green 
thirty  years  ago)  are  playing ;  and  through  the  quiet 
streets  a  plodding  school-boy  goes  with  his  Virgil  un- 
der his  arm,  and  with  high  hopes  in  his  heart ;  and  for 
that  quiet,  prosaic  life,  with  its  old-time  duties  and  re- 
strictions, its  homely  joys  and  patriotic  impulses,  I, 
Felix  Oldboy,  am  to-day  profoundly  grateful.  There 
is  no  sweeter  poetry  in  existence  than  its  retrospect. 

It  was  this  old  home-life  of  New  York  that  culmi- 
nated so  grandly  here  in  the  April  days  of  1861,  when 
the  sons  of  the  metropolis  shouldered  the  musket  them- 
selves— asking  no  substitutes  and  taking  no  bounty— 
and  in  the  beauty  of  the  spring-tide  sunshine  marched 
down  Broadway  to  the  echo  of  a  city's  wild  huzzas.  No 
cavaliers  ever  marched  more  proudly  than  they.  None 
fought  better.  In  the  white  splendor  of  their  youth 
they  lay  dead  on  the  field  of  honor,  or  returned  brown, 
bearded,  and  victorious.  The  story  of  our  Theodore 
Winthrop  at  Big  Bethel  was  the  record  of  all  the  boys 
from  our  homes  who  gave  their  lives  for  their  coun- 
try. 

But  I  have  said  enough,  perhaps  too  much,  about 
this  poetry  business,  and  I  relent.  At  some  future 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK  79 

time,  when  I  have  completed  my  great  work  on  The 
Dialects  of  the  Manhado  Indians,  with  Parallel  A  nno- 
t at io its  on  the  Coincidences  of  the  Iroquois  Tongue,  I  may 
print  a  book  upon  this  theme,  to  the  honor  and  glory 
of  the  city  which  I  love. 

Meanwhile,  instead  of  proceeding  at  once  on  our 
tour  up  Broadway  from  Lispenard's  Swamp,  as  I  had 
intended,  I  may  as  well  digress  again  and  answer  the 
question  of  a  correspondent  who  wants  to  know  some- 
thing about  my  grandmother's  home  and  mine — where 
it  was,  what  it  looked  like,  and  whereof  was  its  atmos- 
phere. 

The  dear  old  lady's  life  was  an  incarnation  of  poetry, 
and  once  in  a  while,  too,  she  actually  dropped  into 
versification.  "  Felix,"  she  said  to  me  on  one  memo- 
rable occasion  when  she  had  come  to  pay  me  a  visit  at 
the  old  college  on  the  Delaware  where  I  first  was  matric- 
ulated— "  Felix,  I  composed  some  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful poetry  that  you  ever  heard  while  I  was  in  the  cars 
on  my  way  here."  "  Give  it  to  me,  granny,"  I  replied, 
as  I  put  on  the  critical  air  of  a  highly  literary  Fresh- 
man. She  liked  me  to  call  her  "  granny  "  when  we 
were  alone,  because  she  knew  it  was  simply  affection- 
ate, and  there  was  something  kittenish  about  her  to 
the  last.  On  this  occasion  she  took  off  her  golden 
spectacles,  leaned  over  confidentially  towards  me,  and 
said  with  sorrowful  earnestness,  "  For  the  life  of  me, 
Felix,  I  can't  remember  a  line  of  it,  and  I  can't  even 
remember  what  it  was  about."  She  never  did  recall 
it.  Unfortunately,  too,  this  is  the  only  specimen  of 
my  grandmother's  poetry. 

But,  for  all  that,  her  life,  in  its  long,  patient  widow- 
hood, was  a  poem  of  wonderful  sweetness.  We  two — 


80  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

she  with  her  white  hair  and  I  with  the  glow  of  youth 
—understood  each  other  perfectly,  and  our  lives  har- 
monized marvellously,  and  I  think  it  was  from  her  that 
I  caught  the  affection  I  feel  for  some  of  the  inanimate 
localities  of  which  she  taught  me  the  history  and  tra- 
ditions. She  was  of  the  ancient  colonial  lineage  of 
New  York,  and  with  all  her  gentleness  was  a  devout 
believer  that  blood  would  tell  in  men  as  in  horses.  A 
most  womanly  woman,  when  fourscore  years  had  be- 
gun to  bow  her  form,  I  was  fond  of  persuading  her  to 
let  me  have  a  glimpse  of  the  days  of  her  puissant  girl- 
hood, just  for  the  sake  of  seeing  the  flush  of  twenty 
summers  creep  once  more  up  her  cheek,  and  lighten 
the  eyes  that  never  seemed  to  grow  old.  It  is  well 
for  us  all  when  we  can  carry  something  of  this  poetry 
of  life  beyond  the  fifty  years'  mile-stone. 

My  grandmother  lived  in  a  three-story  and  basement 
brick  house  that  faced  St.  John's  Park.  The  house 
had  a  peaked  roof  and  dormer-windows;  in  front  a 
brown-stone  stoop,  with  iron  railings  ending  in  a  lofty 
extinguisher,  whose  use  departed  when  link  lights 
went  out  of  date,  but  whose  pattern  was  still  fashion- 
able. In  front  two  large  sycamores  gave  ample  shade, 
and  the  wide  porch  in  the  rear  was  covered  by  grape- 
vines, and  the  yard  was  shaded  by  a  horse-chestnut 
tree.  The  house  was  severely  plain  outside  ;  within,  it 
was  a  model  of  comfort  for  that  time,  though  latter- 
day  luxury  would  think  it  stiff  and  uncomfortable. 
The  lofty  walls  of  the  large  parlors  were  painted  a 
light  drab.  There  were  chandeliers  of  cut  glass,  for 
candles,  hung  from  the  centre  of  each  ceiling,  and  sim- 
ilar clusters  of  glass  pendants  adorned  the  mantel-piece, 
which  was  further  set  out  with  massive  silver  candle- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  83 

sticks  and  huge  rare  shells.  Rich  carpets  of  a  large 
pattern  were  on  the  floor ;  the  furniture  was  of  satin- 
wood  and  ebony  of  severe  pattern  in  the  front  parlor, 
and  of  horse-hair,  still  more  severe,  in  the  back.  Old- 
fashioned  tete-a-tetes  were  the  only  sign  of  yielding  to 
the  weakness  of  the  human  frame  in  young  couples, 
while  immense  rocking-chairs  and  small  and  hard  otto- 
mans gave  what  comfort  they  could  to  the  old  and  the 
young.  Heavy  curtains  hung  at  the  deep  windows, 
which  also  contained  antique  courting  appliances,  in 
the  shape  of  cushioned  seats  .that  filled  the  window 
space,  and  that  were  cosey  enough  love-nooks  when 
the  curtains  were  let  down  and  used  as  a  shield.  Pict- 
ures and  books  were  there  in  profusion,  and  a  cabinet 
collection  of  shells  that  my  father  had  brought  back 
with  him  from  the  Indies.  Bric-a-brac  was  unknown 
and  portieres  were  not  dreamed  of — heavy  solid  ma- 
hogany doors  everywhere — but  we  had  huge  vases  that 
had  come  direct  from  China,  and  rugs  that  a  ship  cap- 
tain had  brought  from  the  Mediterranean.  So  we  were 
not  entirely  barbarous. 

It  might  puzzle  the  later  generation  to  understand 
how  we  kept  warm  all  winter,  with  nothing  but  grate 
fires  of  Liverpool  coal  to  heat  the  parlors,  but  somehow 
we  managed  to  exist.  Nor  was  there  any  gas  in  the 
house.  Astral  lamps  and  candles  did  service  down- 
stairs, and  we  took  our  candlesticks  or  small  camphene 
lamps  to  light  us  up  to  bed.  In  the  sleeping-rooms 
we  had  stoves  of  sheet-iron,  in  which  wood-fires  were 
lighted  at  night  or  in  the  morning  "  to  take  the  chill 
off."  Up-stairs  were  great  closets  between  the  large 
sleeping- rooms,  that  were  storehouses  in  themselves, 
and  above  was  an  attic  with  sloping  walls,  containing 


84  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW   YORK 

chests,  and  boxes,  and  barrels  of  miscellaneous  plun- 
der, out  of  which  I  surreptitiously  unearthed  Peregrine 
Pickle  and  other  morsels  of  forbidden  literature — with 
infinite  delight,  as  I  remember.  My  own  room  was 
under  the  eaves,  and  when  I  was  a  boy  I  delighted  to 
climb  out  of  the  dormer-window  and  up  the  steep 
roof  at  risk  of  my  neck  until  I  reached  the  ridge, 
where  I  would  sit  astride  and  watch  the  swaying  of  the 
trees  in  the  park  and  the  circling  flight  of  thrush  and 
robin.  Down-stairs  was  the  basement  room,  in  which 
we  dined,  whose  windows  contained  semi-transparent 
panes  of  glass  imported  from  Paris,  which  it  was  almost 
a  death  penalty  to  break.  Under  the  front  porch  was 
a  hydrant  of  Croton  water,  and  all  that  was  used  had 
to  be  carried  from  this  point  through  the  house — for 
we  had  not  yet  reached  the  luxury  of  Croton  on  every 
floor.  The  water  for  the  kitchen  range  and  boiler  was 
brought  from  two  cisterns  built  under  the  flagging  of 
the  rear  yard  and  filtered  through  charcoal ;  and  in  the 
yard  was  also  a  deep,  unused  well,  which  I  delighted 
to  sound  with  a  plummet.  Here  were  also  my  treas- 
ures— a  dog,  parrot,  doves,  guinea-pigs,  and  a  turtle. 

There  was  nothing  of  gilt  or  gingerbread  here,  and 
some  ordinary  comforts  of  to-day  were  missing,  but 
for  all  that,  we  had  a  good  time  of  it.  There  was  no 
lounging  at  the  feet  of  beauty,  no  aesthetic  sprawling 
in  the  drawing-room  ;  no  liveried  footman  or  buttoned 
page,  where  my  grandmother's  colored  man,  Abraham, 
son  of  an  old  slave  of  the  family,  did  the  honors  of 
attendance.  But  somehow  there  was  a  prevailing  sense 
of  dignity  which  I  failed  to  find  in  the  "  palatial  man- 
sion "  of  Mr.  Nabob.  The  stately  manners  of  my 
grandmother's  home  were  a  study.  There  comes  up 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK  85 

as  I  write  the  picture  of  Dr.  Wainwright,  the  model  of 
clerical  elegance  in  his  day,  taking  his  glass  of  Madeira 
in  a  way  which  was  positively  sublime  to  witness,  and 
I  really  do  not  know  where  to  turn  to  have  the  picture 
duplicated  in  life.  When  some  one  expressed  surprise, 
in  the  days  before  the  war,  to  see  Bishop  Doane  of 
New  Jersey  take  off  his  hat  in  the  streets  to  Benny 
Jackson,  a  colored  pastor  and  preacher  at  Burlington, 
where  they  both  lived,  that  distinguished  prelate  re- 
marked that  he  could  not  submit  to  being  outdone  in 
politeness  by  a  negro.  I  heard  the  bishop  once  deliver 
a  commencement  address  to  the  students  of  Burlington 
College,  founded  upon  the  motto  of  William  of  Wyke- 
ham,  "  Manners  Makyth  Man."  That  was  thirty  years 
ago,  and  it  might  not  be  a  bad  idea  to  have  another 
sermon  preached  from  the  same  text  for  the  benefit  of 
a  new  generation. 

Poetry?  But  I  must  not  digress  again.  As  the 
strident  voice  of  the  Goth  who  has  stirred  me  up  to 
righteous  wrath  dies  away,  and  his  aggressive  form 
passes  out  of  sight,  I  seem  to  hear  my  grandmother 
say,  with  just  a  suspicion  of  sarcastic  emphasis  in  her 
voice,  "  Felix,  tea  is  ready,  and  you  should  have  invited 
the  gentleman  in.  A  cup  of  tea  is  very  good  to  take 
the  wind  off  the  stomach." 


86  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER   VIII 

ECCLESIASTICAL  RAIDS  BY  NIGHT  —  BOWERY  VILLAGE  METHODISTS  — 
CHARLOTTE  TEMPLE'S  HOME— A  BOOK-STORE  OF  LANG  SYNE — OLD 
LAFAYETTE  PLACE— THE  TRAGEDY  OF  CHARLOTTE  CANDA — A  RE- 
MINDER OF  TWEED 

MY  grandmother  was  a  devout  attendant  upon  the 
services  of  St.  John's  Chapel,  in  Varick  Street.  I  can 
see  her  now,  in  coal-scuttle  bonnet  and  ample  Hudson's 
Bay  sables,  leaning  one  arm  upon  the  high  top  of  our 
pew,  while  she  delivered  the  responses  in  as  firm  a 
voice  as  if  she  were  an  ecclesiastical  adjutant  with  a 
copy  of  general  orders  from  celestial  headquarters. 
Her  prayer-book  was  an  octavo  of  formidable  dimen- 
sions, for  which  I  had  a  sincere  and  somewhat  awful 
respect  in  my  very  young  days ;  for,  when  it  was 
brought  out  from  the  bureau  drawer,  I  knew  that  it 
meant  the  recording  of  more  sermons  in  my  youthful 
calendar.  Twice  a  day  to  church  and  twice  a  day  to 
Sunday-school  was  the  rule  of  the  house,  and  it  was 
inflexible.  Everybody  went  to  church  in  those  days, 
and  we  all  knew  each  other  and  duly  catalogued  the 
absentees  and  inquired  of  their  families  after  service 
as  to  their  welfare.  Immediately  in  front  of  my  grand- 
mother sat  Dr.  Hunter  and  his  family,  behind  us  Lis- 
penard  Stewart ;  to  the  right  sat  Gen.  John  A.  Dix 
and  his  household  ;  to  the  left,  across  the  north  aisle, 
was  the  great  square  pew,  upholstered  in  drab,  in  which 
the  Lydig  family  sat.  I  remember  it  particularly,  be- 


A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW   YORK  87 

cause  of  the  fact  that  it  appeared  to  offer  unlimited 
scope  to  the  limbs  of  a  naturally  fidgety  boy. 

Once  in  a  while  my  grandmother  would  delight  me 
by  stealing  away  by  night  to  a  Methodist  or  Presby- 
terian conventicle.  Usually  she  despised  heretics  and 
schismatics — at  least,  she  said  that  she  did,  and  tried 
to  believe  it.  But  the  sermons  at  St.  John's  were  in- 
variably high  and  dry — delivered  high  up  in  the  old- 
fashioned,  three-decker  pulpit,  and  as  dry  as  the  ink  on 
the  manuscript — and  I  think  the  dear  old  lady  felt  the 
need  occasionally  of  what  some  of  her  ancient  heretical 
cronies  of  other  churches  called  "  an  awakening  dis- 
course." So  I  was  always  glad  when  she  put  on  her 
bonnet  of  a  Sunday  evening  and  locked  up  the  drawer 
that  contained  her  formidable  prayer-book,  and  said, 
4'  Come,  Felix" — for  then  I  prepared  for  an  awakener. 
We  always  got  it  at  the  Vestry  Street  Methodist 
Church.  No ;  you  won't  find  it  on  the  map  now. 
The  church  at  present  occupies  a  handsome  brown- 
stone  building  on  Seventh  Avenue,  near  Fourteenth 
Street.  Then  it  had  a  shabby,  old  brick  structure  for 
its  ecclesiastical  home,  but  its  membership  numbered 
nearly  a  thousand,  and  its  congregation  overflowed 
the  aisles  and  vestibules.  I  do  not  remember  the 
names  of  any  preachers  I  heard  there,  but  they  were 
earnest  and  energetic  men,  who  had  no  manuscripts 
before  them,  and  who  sometimes  startled  me  by 
their  plain  talk  about  a  brimstone  region  which  I 
was  accustomed  to  hear  very  delicately  alluded  to  in 
the  pulpit.  Some  of  the  old  hymns  that  I  heard  there 
linger  still  in  my  memory.  There  was  no  poetry  in 
them,  but  somehow  they  had  power  to  sway  human- 
ity in  masses  more  than  any  modern  anthem.  Some- 


88  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 

times    my   grandmother   would    hear   me    singing   at 

home, 

"  It's  the  old-time  religion, 
And  it's  good  enough  for  me  ;" 

or  shouting  explosively  in  the  back  yard, 
"  I  am  climbing  Jacob's  ladder;" 

and  if  she  saw  me  at  the  time  she  would  turn  and  look 
at  me  reproachfully,  but  she  never  said  anything. 

Occasionally  my  grandmother  compromised  with 
her  conscience  by  going  to  hear  an  eloquent  young 
Virginian  who  occupied  the  pulpit  of  Laight  Street 
congregation,  and  delighted  a  most  fashionable  audi- 
ence. She  would  quietly  remark  to  me  on  the  way 
that  he  was  really  more  than  half  a  churchman,  be- 
cause he  wore  gown,  bands,  and  cassock  when  he 
preached,  and  used  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Creed  in 
the  opening  service.  The  diagnosis  made  by  my 
grandmother  was  correct.  This  young  clergyman,  the 
Rev.  Flavel  S.  Mines,  was  afterwards  ordained  deacon 
and  priest  in  old  St.  George's  Church,  in  Beekman 
Street,  where  he  became  assistant  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Mil- 
nor.  Some  time  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  Ben- 
son J.  Lossing,  asking  me  if  I  could  tell  him  what  had 
been  the  young  assistant's  fate.  He  wrote  :  "  I  think 
he  was  the  most  eloquent  man  I  ever  heard  in  the 
pulpit.  I  suppose  he  must  have  passed  to  his  rest 
long  ago."  Yes;  for  thirty- four  years  he  has  been 
sleeping  under  the  altar  of  Trinity  Church,  San  Fran- 
cisco, which  he  founded. 

Now,  what  has  caused  this  diversion  from  our  tour 
up  Broadway,  from  the  Lispenard  Meadows?  Im- 
primis, it  was  the  recollection  that  I  had  forgotten  to 


ST.    GEORGE  S    CHURCH,   BEEKMAN    STREET 


mention  the  famous  book-store  of  Roe  Lockwood,  on 
Broadway,  below  Lispenard  Street,  where  all  the  boys 
of  forty  years  ago  went  to  purchase  their  school-books. 
Can  I  ever  forget  with  what  awe  I  looked  up  at  the 
shelves  filled  with  tomes  of  tremendous  learning,  or 
with  what  pride  I  went  there  alone,  at  the  age  of  eleven, 
and  purchased  a  Cooper's  Virgil?  It  was  carefully 
wrapped  up  in  paper,  but  as  soon  as  I  got  outside  I 
tore  the  paper  off,  placed  the  book  nonchalantly  un- 


90  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

der  my  arm,  and  walked  with  head  erect  down  to  my 
home  on  the  Park — the  proudest  boy  in  the  city  on 
that  day.  Looking  back,  I  know  it  must  have  been  a 
queer  sight  that  I  presented  as  I  trudged  along  to 
school  with  my  big  books  under  my  arm,  and  I  don't 
wonder  that  the  larger  boys  in  Billy  Forrest's  school 
stopped  me  sometimes  to  see  if  I  could  really  read  the 
direful  woes  of  fiLneas  and  Dido.  Small  for  my  years, 
I  wore  roundabout  and  trousers,  a  cap  with  a  visor, 
and  a  brown  linen  apron  with  sleeves,  tied  behind  and 
reaching  to  my  knees.  This  last  was  my  grandmoth- 
er's idea  of  a  school  uniform  for  small  boys.  A  woollen 
tippet  around  my  neck  and  a  pair  of  mittens  knit  by 
home  hands  completed  my  winter  equipment.  Why, 
I  can  smile  myself  as  I  see  this  queer  little  figure 
trudging  through  the  snow  at  the  junction  of  Varick 
and  Franklin  streets,  and  far  too  chilled  to  cast  more 
than  an  oblique  glance  at  his  favorite  antiquity — the 
much  admired  and  lamented  statue  of  William  Pitt, 
which  stood,  wrecked  and  dismantled,  outside  Mr. 
Riley's  Fifth  Ward  Museum  Hotel.  But  here  I  am 
digressing  again.  Mr.  Roe  Lockwood  was  an  elder  in 
the  Laight  Street  Presbyterian  Church,  as  well  as  a 
shrewd  man  of  business,  and  this  fact  it  is  that  has  led 
me  astray  in  my  tour. 

Another  reason  for  the  digression  is  my  chancing  in 
upon  a  quiet  celebration  in  a  forgotten  neighborhood 
a  Sunday  or  two  ago,  which  brought  back  to  me  some 
vivid  memories  of  my  visits  to  the  Vestry  Street  sanct- 
uary. This  was  the  centennial  anniversary  of  the  old 
Bowery  Village  Methodist  Church,  known  now  as  the 
Seventh  Street  Church,  which  began  very  humbly  in 
the  parlor  of  Gilbert  Coutant's  little  frame  house,  near 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  91 

the  two-miles  stone  on  the  Bowery.  From  the  modest 
parlor  that  was  carefully  sanded  every  Saturday  night 
in  preparation  for  the  morrow,  the  church  was  moved 
to  a  site  on  the  ground  npw  occupied  by  the  Cooper 
Institute,  and  here  young  and  zealous  Peter  Cooper 
became  the  first  superintendent  of  its  Sunday-school. 
It  was  moved  successively  to  Nicholas  William  Street, 
once  parallel  with  Stuyvesant  Street,  but  now  blotted 
out,  and  then  to  its  present  situation.  I  heard  John 
Stephenson,  who  has  built  street-cars  for  nearly  every 
civilized  country,  tell  the  story  of  his  conversion  in  the 
old  church  fifty- nine  years  ago,  and  he  and  others 
praised  the  work  of  old  "  Father  "  Tiemann  (father  of 
the  Mayor  of  that  name),  and  told  the  story  of  the 
church  in  the  days  when  it  was  in  the  prime  of  its 
strength — the  days  when  I  was  a  boy  on  the  west  side, 
and  Seventh  Street  was  up-town,  and  the  centre  of  the 
homes  of  prosperous  tradesmen  and  wealthy  descend- 
ants of  the  old  colonial  settlers,  who  had  their  bouweries 
and  villas  on  the  other  side  of  the  Sand  Hills.  The 
neighborhood  about  St.  Mark's  Church  was  known  as 
Bowery  Village  for  the  first  quarter  of  the  present 
century,  and  even  later. 

On  an  old  map  of  this  neighborhood  I  find  the  con- 
tinuation of  Stuyvesant  Street  beyond  the  Bowery 
(now  Fourth  Avenue)  set  down  as  Art  Street,  and  I 
wonder  if  this  was  identical  with  Astor  Place  as  indi- 
cated by  some  later  maps.  Upon  Art  Street,  a  little 
east  of  the  Bowery,  stood  the  stone  house  which  was 
once  the  residence  of  Charlotte  Temple.  Her  story 
seems  to  have  made  an  impression  which  ambitious 
and  gifted  men  have  failed  to  create.  Her  grave  in 
Trinity  church-yard  excites  more  interest  than  those  of 


92 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


Alexander  Hamilton  or  gallant  Captain  Lawrence,  of 
the  Chesapeake.  The  other  day,  as  I  was  passing  the 
entrance  of  that  church -yard,  a  quiet- voiced  young 
man,  on  whose  arm  a  shy  and  pretty  bride  was  leaning, 
asked  me  if  I  could  point  out  the  grave  of  Charlotte 
Temple,  and  they  informed  me  confidentially  that  they 
were  on  a  tour  from  Philadelphia.  As  if  a  gray  mus- 


GRAVE  OF  CHARLOTTE  TEMPLE 

tache  like  Felix  Oldboy  could  not  tell  at  a  glance 
that  the  two  blushing  innocents  were  taking  their 
first  week's  journey  in  life  together,  all  daisies  and 
whipped  syllabub  and  sunshine,  to  which  gold  and 
diamonds  were  but  dross.  A  few  moments  after- 
wards  I  passed  and  saw  them  forming  part  of  a  group 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  93 

that  were  gazing  sadly  at  the  slab  sunk  in  the  turf 
that  told  of  a  short  life  sadly  ended,  and,  if  I  mistake 
not,  there  was  a  tear  hanging  to  the  eyelids  of  the 
gentle  bride. 

Not  far  from  this  neighborhood  was  another  historic 
church,  which  is  fated  to  go  the  way  of  its  predeces- 
sors of  the  same  creed  in  the  down -town  districts. 
The  old  Reformed  Dutch  Church,  which  has  so  long 
been  a  landmark  in  Lafayette  Place,  at  Fourth  Street, 
is  now  razed  to  the  ground.  It  has  been  somewhat 
lonesome  since  the  departure  of  St.  Bartholomew's 
Church,  on  the  opposite  side,  and  a  block  below,  and 
has  found  its  continued  existence  a  burden.  The 
young  do  not  mind  the  moving,  but  rather  enjoy  it ; 
but  to  us  older  ones  the  razing  of  a  church  hallowed 
by  associations  with  the  past  is  a  sore  blow.  I  find 
that  we  don't  like  to  turn  down  the  streets  in  which 
an  old  association  of  our  youth  has  been  slain.  We 
go  out  of  our  way  to  avoid  it.  True,  the  people  we 
have  known  have  moved  away,  but  they  cannot  carry 
with  them  the  familiar  look  of  their  homes  and  haunts. 
For  some  years  past  only  the  Willetts,  out  of  all  the 
old  stock,  have  remained  to  keep  up  the  ancient  con- 
nection of  Lafayette  Place  with  the  old-time  settlers. 
The  new  race  do  not  even  remember  when  Madame 
Canda  kept  her  famous  school  for  young  ladies  next 
door  to  the  Dutch  Church — a  very  rose-bud  garden  of 
girlish  loveliness — and  have  only  dimly  heard  the  tra- 
dition of  a  winter's  night  tragedy  that  shocked  a  whole 
city  by  its  startling  suddenness  and  left  the  Canda 
household  bereaved.  The  fair  young  girl  who  on  her 
eighteenth  birthnight  was  dashed  from  her  carriage 
and  killed,  and  at  the  moment  she  was  to  make  her 


GRAVE   OF   ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

triumphant    entrance    into    society  entered    into    life 
eternal,  had  a  whole  city  for  her  mourners. 

While  upon  the  subject  of  churches,  I  recall  a  pict- 
ure of  desolation  that  I  witnessed  on  one  of  the  streets 
east  of  Broadway,  soon  after  the  close  of  the  war — an 
old-fashioned  church,  with  stucco  walls,  whose  roof 
and  windows  had  been  dismantled,  standing  in  the 
midst  of  trees  that  had  been  felled  and  vaults  that 
had  been  rifled  of  their  mouldering  coffins.  It  was 
the  old  home  of  St.  Stephen's  congregation,  who  had 
moved  up-town  into  a  more  fashionable  neighborhood. 
The  old  rector,  Dr.  Price,  still  lives,  though  approach- 
ing ninety  years  of  age.  But  the  ruined  church  had 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  95 

a  special  interest  for  me  at  the  time  as  the  place  where 
William  M.  Tweed  attended  public  worship,  or  at 
least  had  his  family  pew.  It  did  not  strike  me  then 
as  prophetic,  but  I  seldom  think  of  that  fallen  man, 
who  gave  his  occupation  as  "  statesman  "  when  enroll- 
ed as  a  convict  at  Blackwell's  Island,  without  that 
picture  of  utter  desolation  in  the  dismantled  church- 
yard that  had  often  echoed  to  his  steps,  coming  up  to 
my  mind.  Before  me  lies,  by  chance,  a  list  of  the 
wedding  presents  made  to  his  daughter.  It  is  a  queer 
record.  There  are  names  here  which  are  still  potent 
in  local  politics,  chiefly  of  Mr.  Tweed's  own  political 
following,  but  among  them  are  sandwiched  the  names 
of  Jay  Gould,  Thurlow  Weed,  James  Fisk,  Jr.,  Isaac 
Bell,  Hugh  J.  Hastings,  and  other  gentlemen  of  ap- 
parently opposite  views,  and  the  value  of  the  presents 
mounts  up  to  a  small  fortune. 

As  I  trudge  back  to  Broadway  and  prepare  to  take 
up  again  my  line  of  march  from  the  vicinity  of  Canal 
Street,  near  by  the  spot  where  a  lovely  lane  once  ran 
from  the  Bayard  mansion,  a  little  to  the  east  of  this 
thoroughfare,  down  through  Lispenard  Meadows  to 
the  North  River  shore,  I  am  composing  mentally  a 
sermon  upon  shade  trees.  An  old  school-teacher  of 
mine  once  vowed  in  his  wrath — apropos  of  an  adoles- 
cent elm -tree  that  had  been  hacked  to  death  by  the 
knives  of  his  pupils — that  "  the  boy  who  would  kill  a 
shade  tree  would  kill  a  man,"  and  I  do  not  know  but 
that  in  the  main  he  was  correct.  My  uncle  has  told 
me  that  when  he  was  a  boy,  Broadway  and  all  the 
adjacent  streets  were  lined  with  trees  of  every  native 
species.  It  is  curious  to  read  that  in  the  time  when 
Broadway,  from  the  arched  bridge  (Canal  Street)  to 


96  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 

its  junction  with  the  Bowery  Lane  (at  Union  Square) 
was  known  as  the  Middle  Road,  Mr.  Samuel  Burling 
offered  to  furnish  poplar- trees  to  line  the  thorough- 
fare from  Leonard  Street  to  Art  Street,  and  that  there 
was  poetry  enough  in  the  Common  Council  to  agree 
that  the  arrangement  would  be  "  an  additional  beauty 
to  Broadway,  the  pride  of  our  city !"  I  try  to  fancy 
it  all  as  we  stand  here — the  modest  dwellings  close  at 
hand,  which  were  the  homes  of  the  Pells,  the  Gris- 
wolds,  the  Hoffmans,  the  Lawrences,  the  Ludlows, 
Citizen  Genet,  and  Dr.  Livingston,  and  the  stately 
poplars  that  stood  sentinel  in  front  of  them  ;  the  cir- 
cus that  fronted  unobtrusively  on  the  main  street  and 
hid  itself  in  the  fields  beyond;  the  public-house  at 
Broadway  and  Grand  Street,  with  Tattersall's  below 
it.  But  I  cannot  make  it  real.  My  uncle  has  told 
me  that  the  open  ditch  or  stream  at  Canal  Street  was 
eight  or  ten  feet  wide,  and  that  its  banks  were  lined 
with  beautiful  wild  flowers,  and  that  upon  the  hills  in 
the  rear  of  Broadway  and  below  Spring  Street  the 
boys  of  his  day  used  to  play  in  the  remains  of  the 
Revolutionary  earthworks.  I  recall  hereabouts  the 
old  Olympic  Theatre,  the  American  Art  Union  (whose 
annual  drawings  of  pictures  made  one  of  the  milder 
sensations  of  the  day),  the  Manhattan  Club,  and  Tat- 
tersall's. 

Tattersall's,  on  the  east  side  of  Broadway,  between 
Howard  and  Grand  streets,  was  one  of  the  best  known 
institutions  of  the  old  city.  Here  one  could  buy  any 
sort  of  a  horse  or  carriage  at  an  hour's  notice,  and  its 
auctions  were  as  amusing  as  a  circus.  Perhaps  my 
own  memory  of  it  is  faint,  but  it  had  been  freshened 
up  by  my  uncle.  In  youth  a  centaur,  he  used  to 


A  TOUR   AROUND  NEW  YORK  97 

spend  all  his  spare  time  around  Tattersall's  stables, 
and  more  than  once  his  mother  had  been  properly 
shocked  at  seeing  him  flying  down  the  street  on  the 
bare  back  of  a  horse  which  he  had  been  permitted  to 
take  out  for  exercise  or  to  ride  to  water  at  the  Arched 
Bridge.  A  reckless  boy,  he  rode  like  the  wind,  and 
kept  up  his  pace  through  life,  but  he  always  loved  the 
mother  who  adored  this  most  daring  of  her  offspring. 
When  in  a  reminiscent  train  of  thought  on  this  line, 
my  grandmother  said,  solemnly,  "  Felix,  if  I  had  that 
boy's  neck  broken  once,  I  had  it  broken  a  hundred 
times,  and  then  to  think  he  died  quietly  in  his  bed, 
after  all !"  If  I  had  not  known  my  grandmother  in- 
finitely well,  I  might  have  thought  that  she  had  been 
actually  disappointed  at  her  favorite  son's  edifying 
end.  But  I  took  up  her  great  cat,  Gustavus  Adolphus, 
a  famous  fellow  of  the  tiger  pattern,  who  was  never  far 
away  from  the  gentle  old  lady's  little  feet  (which  had 
moved  daintily  in  the  minuet  in  the  old  Clinton  Man- 
sion on  the  Hudson  River,  close  by  Greenwich  Village, 
and  had  wrought  immense  havoc  among  the  high-col- 
lared and  voluminously -cravated  exquisites  of  the 
period);  and  placed  him  in  her  lap.  And  as  she  stroked 
his  fur  a  tear  fell  on  the  ferocious  whiskers  of  the 
namesake  of  Sweden's  hero,  and  he  looked  up  and 
plaintively  purred  as  if  he,  too,  had  understood  it  all. 


98  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER    IX 

ECCENTRICITIES  OF  MEMORY— QUEER  STREET  CHARACTERS — THE  ONLY 
SON  OF  A  KING— IDIOMS  OF  A  PAST  GENERATION — OLD  VOLUNTEER 
FIREMEN — A  FORGOTTEN  STATESMAN 

A  QUEER  thing  is  this  memory  of  ours.  When  we 
have  leisure  to  overhaul  its  storehouses,  to  brush  away 
the  dust  and  restore  the  forgotten  pictures  of  long  ago, 
it  creates  a  new  world  of  old  friends  for  us  veterans 
who  persist  in  lagging  behind  the  majority.  With  an 
implacable  enemy  sowing  white  hairs  and  deep  wrin- 
kles, I  understand  what  my  grandmother  meant  when 
she  told  me  that  she  was  never  lonesome;  that  all  the 
sweet  visions  and  hallowed  spectres  of  the  past  came 
trooping  around  her  as  she  sat  by  the  fireside  in  the 
winter  nights,  and  they  made  her  wondrously  content. 
The  babies  she  had  kissed  in  death  half  a  century  be- 
fore, and  that  had  never  grown  an  hour  older;  the 
stalwart  young  brother  who  went  to  sea  in  her  girl- 
hood, and  never  was  heard  of  again ;  the  husband 
taken  from  her  side  in  early  manhood ;  the  endless 
line  of  friends  who  for  two  generations  had  been  pass- 
ing over  Jordan  into  the  land  of  promise ;  her  brides- 
maids, the  children  she  had  played  with,  her  own 
pretty  young  mother — all  these  came  trooping  around 
the  white-haired  old  lady  and  made  her  happy  in  her 
loneliest  hours.  Surely  one  of  the  beatitudes  was 
omitted  in  making  up  the  transcript,  for,  blessed  are 
the  aged  who  understand  how  to  grow  old  gracefully. 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  IOI 

"  Did  you  ever  hear  me  preach  ?"  asked  the  elder 
Coleridge  of  Charles  Lamb.  "  I  never  heard  you  do 
anything  else,"  was  the  sharp  response.  Perhaps  some 
of  my  readers  will  think  my  grandmother  was  right  in 
desiring  to  train  me  up  for  a  minister,  and  that  there 
is  a  surplus  of  moralizing  in  these  papers.  The  dear 
old  lady  was  so  bent  upon  my  making  a  career  of  the 
pulpit  that  she  objected  to  my  taking  dancing  lessons 
at  Monsieur  Charraud's  Terpsichorean  rookery  on 
White  Street.  Do  any  of  the  old  boys  remember 
that  musty  old  resort — the  dingy  nests  of  boxes  in 
which  hats  and  shoes  were  deposited,  the  well-waxed 
floor  lighted  by  candles  in  sconces,  the  dear  old  danc- 
ing-master and  his  endless  violin,  and  goblin  wrath 
with  a  pupil's  awkwardness,  the  giggling  of  the  girls 
who  carried  on  surreptitious  flirtations  through  offer- 
ings of  taffy  and  peanuts,  the  wild  delight  of  escorting 
a  chosen  sweetheart  home,  and  the  sorrow  of  having 
to  leave  her  at  the  nearest  corner  to  her  home,  for 
fear  her  big  sisters  would  make  her  life  miserable  by 
teasing  ?  I  do  not  think  that  this  mild  revelry  would 
have  harmed  even  a  student  of  divinity,  much  less  a 
boy  who  had  no  such  aspirations. 

These  things  are  all  written  down  in  the  book  of 
memory,  and  it  is  the  privilege  of  age  to  open  the  vol- 
ume and  preach  a  sermon  therefrom.  Besides,  I  am 
tempted  into  it.  One  friend  writes  and  asks  if  I  re- 
member the  queer  personages  who  used  to  roam  our 
streets  when  the  city  was  smaller  and  identities  were 
not  so  easily  hidden.  Another  wants  information  in 
regard  to  the  idioms,  and  the  political  caricatures,  and 
the  eccentricities  of  private  and  public  life  forty  years 
ago — and  then  I  open  the  volume  of  memory's  photo- 


102  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

graphs  (though  we  had  nothing  but  daguerrotypes 
then,  and  Insley  had  the  most  famous  gallery  of  the 
day),  and  perforce  I  begin  to  preach. 

Yes,  there  were  some  characters  in  the  streets  of 
New  York  whom  everybody  knew  by  sight,  but  of  the 
mysteries  of  whose  life  as  little  was  known  then  as 
now.  The  Lime- kiln  Man  was  a  familiar  figure  to 
the  street  arabs  and  a  sphinx  to  the  newspaper  men. 
Sturdy,  with  long  beard,  and  large  blue  eyes,  having 
an  appearance  of  education  and  of  former  refinement, 
he  had  deliberately  chosen  to  make  himself  an  out- 
cast. It  was  said  that  he  slept  in  the  lime-kilns  that 
then  existed  in  the  neighborhood  of  Gansevoort  Street, 
and  his  shabby  clothes,  and  even  his  long  beard,  at 
times  bore  witness  to  the  whiteness  of  his  rough-and- 
ready  bedding.  He  neither  sought  nor  shunned  human 
society,  and  was  fond  of  a  stroll  down  Broadway.  To 
us  boys  he  was  a  fascinating  terror;  and  while  we 
watched  him  with  intense  interest,  we  would  have  run 
away  had  he  approached  us.  Tramps  were  a  rarity  in 
that  day,  and  the  Lime-kiln  Man  was  a  hero  in  our 
eyes,  though  he  was  made  a  Mumbo  Jumbo  in  the 
nursery,  and  all  sorts  of  stories  were  prevalent  as  to 
the  crimes  he  might  have  committed,  of  which  he  was 
doubtless  entirely  innocent.  He  made  a  picturesque 
figure  in  the  little  city  of  quiet  workers,  and  when  he 
died  he  received  a  longer  obituary  than  many  a  good 
citizen  who  had  never  gone  crazy  with  love  or  losses. 
The  Blue  Man  was  another  character  who  was  always 
pointed  out  to  strangers  as  a  local  celebrity.  There 
was  nothing  odd  about  him,  except  that  he  had  taken 
so  much  medicine  that  his  face  had  assumed  a  livid 
hue.  Its  deep  indigo  color  made  him  appear  a  ghost 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  103 

among  the  living,  and  I  well  remember  how  I  was 
startled  when  he  was  first  pointed  out  to  me  on  Broad- 
way. At  two  different  times  there  were  demented 
men  who  haunted  the  City  Hall  Park  and  attempted 
to  set  up  in  business  as  the  Angel  Gabriel.  One  of 
these  preachers  of  a  judgment  to  come  carried  a 
trumpet  under  his  arm  as  a  badge  of  office;  the  other 
wore  a  sort  of  uniform,  with  a  star  upon  his  breast. 
Sometimes  they  would  preach  to  a  few  auditors  in  the 
Park,  or  at  the  street  corners,  and  nobody  molested 
them.  Indeed,  one  of  this  eccentric  pair  showed  con- 
siderable method  in  his  madness,  and  managed  to  con- 
vince some  persons  possessed  of  a  little  money  that 
his  claims  were  divine.  He  went  to  the  penitentiary. 
The  other  Angel  Gabriel  brought  up  in  a  lunatic  asy- 
lum. Another  man  of  mark  had  the  proud  distinction 
of  never  wearing  an  overcoat.  He  wore  a  full-dress 
suit  of  black  (the  dress- coat  was  commonly  worn  on 
the  streets  then),  and  in  the  severest  winter  weather, 
though  he  had  reached  the  age  of  seventy,  he  buttoned 
his  coat  up  to  the  chin,  and  with  no  additional  protec- 
tion save  a  pair  of  warm  gloves,  he  defied  the  elements. 
This  gentleman,  who  was  an  officer  of  a  leading  church 
association,  was  our  Hannibal  Hamlin  in  civil  life.  But 
he  was  not  admired  by  the  boys — for  he  was  continu- 
ally held  up  to  them  as  an  example  of  what  they  ought 
to  do  to  harden  their  constitutions  and  keep  down 
tailors'  bills. 

Of  all  the  strange  characters  whom  I  saw  or  met  in 
early  years,  the  one  who  interested  me  most  was  the 
Rev.  Eleazer  Williams,  missionary  to  the  St.  Regis 
Indians,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  State.  He  was 
not  a  claimant,  and  yet  he  believed  himself  to  be  the 


104  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

son  of  Louis  XVI.  of  France.  As  I  saw  him  in  the 
chancel  of  St.  John's  Chapel,  in  his  surplice,  with  a 
black  velvet  cap  on  his  head,  he  looked  all  that  he 
claimed  to  be;  as  he  wrote  his  autograph  for  me  after- 
wards, he  looked  "  every  inch  a  king."  I  had  hoped 
he  would  write  his  royal  autograph.  "  No,  my  son," 
he  replied,  "  I  am  only  a  missionary  now,  though  a 
king's  son."  He  had  no  doubts  as  to  his  royal  birth; 
I  have  never  had  any  concerning  him.  Prince  de  Join- 
ville  and  other  dignitaries  of  the  French  kingdom  had 
gone  to  him  to  get  him  to  sign  off  claims  that  he  had 
never  made,  and  he  refused.  He  would  not  sell  his 
birthright,  and  he  did  not  want  to  wear  a  crown. 
That  was  kingliness.  Mr.  Williams  was  present  at  a 
reception  at  Dr.  Wainwright's  residence  in  Hubert 
Street,  and  a  young  student  of  divinity  who  had  never 
heard  of  him  had  been  looking  at  some  rare  portraits 
of  the  royal  family  of  France  which  happened  to  be 
on  the  walls.  Suddenly  he  turned  to  a  fellow-student 
and  said,  "  See,  one  of  those  old  Bourbons  has  stepped 
out  of  his  frame  and  is  walking  around  here."  The 
living  portrait  was  a  perfect  fac- simile.  Both  young 
men  were  greatly  astonished  when,  later  in  the  even- 
ing, they  learned  the  strange  story  of  the  kingly  guest. 
For  a  brief  while  Mr.  Williams  was  lionized  in  New 
York,  and  was  made  the  subject  of  a  wide -spread 
inquiry,  "Have  we  a  Bourbon  among  us?"  He  re- 
turned quietly  to  his  work,  and  died  a  few  years  after- 
wards among  the  people  to  whom  he  had  given  his 
life.  That  the  son  of  a  king  of  France  should  become 
a  Protestant  missionary  in  the  American  Republic  is  a 
flight  beyond  the  ordinary  ether  of  fiction.  Yet  he 
believed  it,  and  so  do  I. 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  10$ 

Idioms?  Yes,  slang  is  of  no  nation  or  period.  It 
was  a  characteristic  of  a  past  generation,  as  it  is  to-day, 
though  I  am  quite  certain  that  neither  the  clergy  in 
their  pulpits  nor  the  ladies  in  their  homes  indulged  in 
it.  Queerly  enough,  one  can  trace  the  story  of  any 
given  period  in  its  idioms,  or,  if  you  please,  in  its  slang. 
The  idioms  stand  for  living  people,  real  scenes,  and 
actual  life.  Twelve  or  fifteen  years  before  the  war 
for  the  Union  broke  out,  a  New  York  boy  of  good 
family  ran  away  to  sea  and  made  a  whaling  voyage. 
Out  in  the  South  Pacific  Ocean  one  day  his  ship  anch- 
ored off  a  small  island,  little  more  than  a  coral  reef 
in  the  wide  waste  of  waters,  in  the  hope  of  getting 
fresh  supplies.  Presently  a  great  canoe,  paddled  by  a 
score  of  dusky  spearmen,  shot  out  from  the  shore, 
and  a  huge  islander,  who  turned  out  to  be  the  king  of 
the  reef,  clambered  up  the  side  of  the  ship.  When  he 
reached  the  deck  the  monarch  smiled  so  as  to  show 
every  one  of  his  milk-white  teeth,  and  laughed  assur- 
ingly.  "  Do  you  speak  English  ?"  asked  the  captain. 
The  giant  opened  his  capacious  mouth  and  roared  out, 
"I  kills  for  Keyser!"  The  mystified  captain,  who 
was  a  New  Englander,  inquired  "  what  in  the  name  of 
iniquity"  he  meant.  "  I  kills  for  Keyser!"  roared  the 
giant  again.  And  then  the  young  New  Yorker  stepped 
forward  and  explained  that  this  was  a  New  York  idiom 
— not  to  say  a  bit  of  slang — in  general  use  at  one  time 
in  the  Bowery.  Keyser  was  a  famous  cattle  man,  and 
the  butchers  who  "  killed  "  for  him  were  proud  of  as- 
serting the  fact,  and  it  had  passed  into  the  slang  of 
the  period.  A  shipwrecked  sailor  or  some  delayed 
ship  had  taught  the  King  this  one  sentence  in  English, 
and  he  was  as  proud  of  it  as  if  he  had  acquired  the 


106  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

whole  language.  To  him  it  meant  a  royal  salutation, 
and  he  followed  it  up  with  royal  gifts  to  the  ship.  But 
to  the  New  Yorker  who  heard  it  there,  five  thousand 
miles  from  home,  it  came  like  a  cry  of  mockery  from 
the  grave. 

Was  it  the  fireman  in  real  life  or  the  fire  laddie  of 
the  stage  who  gave  rise  to  the  slang  that  centred 
around  the  life  of  the  volunteer  fireman  ?  For  a  long 
time,  in  my  school-days,  "  Mose,"  "  Lize,"  and  "  Syk- 
sey  "  were  familiar  names  upon  our  play-grounds,  and 
we  shouted  to  "  wash  her  out "  or  "  take  de  butt "  as 
if  we  were  veritable  Chanfraus.  The  caricatures  of 
the  period  found  inexhaustible  fun  in  "  Mose,"  with 
his  red  shirt,  black  broadcloth  pantaloons  tucked  into 
his  boot-tops,  his  elfin  "  soap-locks  "  hanging  over  each 
ear  and  down  his  close-shaven  cheeks,  his  tall  silk  hat 
perched  on  one  side  of  his  head,  and  his  broadcloth 
coat  hung  over  his  left  arm.  For  his  "  Lize  "  he  or- 
dered pork  and  beans  in  the  restaurant,  and  bade  the 
waiter,  "  Don't  yer  stop  ter  count  a  bean,"  and  to 
"  Lize"  he  remarked,  as  he  drove  out  on  the  road,  "  It 
isn't  a  graveyard  we're  passin';  it's  mile-stones."  Pos- 
sibly a  new  generation  does  not  see  anything  laugh- 
able in  these  traditional  jokes,  but  to  the  men  of  that 
period  they  stood  for  living  actualities,  the  dashing 
heroes  of  many  a  fierce  battle  with  the  dread  forces  of 
fire. 

I  honor  the  old  volunteer  firemen.  When  one  of 
the  battered  "  machines  "  of  former  days  passes  by  in 
a  public  procession  I  feel  like  taking  off  my  hat  to  it, 
as  I  always  do  to  the  tattered  colors  that  I  have  fol- 
lowed on  many  a  fierce  field  of  fight.  Ah,  what 
nights  of  noise  and  struggle  were  those  in  which  the 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  109 

engines  rattled  down  pavement  or  sidewalk,  drawn  by 
scores  of  willing  hands  and  ushered  into  action  by  the 
hoarse  cries  of  hundreds  of  cheering  voices.  There 
was  no  boy's  play  around  the  engine  when  once  it  be- 
gan to  battle  with  the  flames.  Men  left  their  pleasant 
firesides  to  risk  their  lives  for  the  preservation  of  the 
lives  and  property  of  others,  and  they  did  it  without 
bravado,  as  if  it  were  but  one  of  the  ordinary  duties 
of  their  lot.  They  had  their  jealousies  and  their  preju- 
dices, their  feuds  and  their  fights  of  rival  organizations, 
but  all  met  alike  on  the  common  ground  of  self-sac- 
rifice for  the  common  good.  All  classes  of  society 
were  represented  in  the  ranks  of  the  firemen.  The  me- 
chanic and  the  son  of  the  wealthy  merchant  were  in- 
distinguishable under  the  volunteer's  heavy  hat,  and 
emulated  each  other  in  labors  and  daring.  College 
graduates  drew  the  silver-mounted  carriage  of  Amity 
Hose  to  the  scene  of  peril,  and  then  the  boys  of  "Old 
Columbia  "  did  as  good  work  amid  the  flames  as  the 
gilt-edged  boys  of  the  Seventh  Regiment  did  after- 
wards through  the  long  years  of  war.  And  then  the 
firemen's  processions — were  they  not  superb  ?  What 
a  magnificent  polish  the  engines  took,  and  how  exu- 
berantly they  were  garlanded  with  flowers,  and  how 
full  were  the  long  lines  of  red-shirted  laddies  who 
manned  the  ropes  and  were  the  cynosure  of  the  ad- 
miring eyes  of  all  feminine  Gotham !  The  men  who 
carried  the  trumpets  were  the  conquering  heroes  of 
the  day  and  the  envy  of  every  boyish  beholder.  It 
seems  a  pity  that  their  glory  should  have  departed. 
Has  it  departed  ?  I  open  the  book  of  memory  again, 
and  they  are  all  there,  and  the  glory  of  their  record  is 
undimmed : 


HO  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

"Those  ahold  of  fire-engines  and  hook-and-ladder  ropes 
No  less  to  me  than  the  gods  of  the  antique  wars." 

Speaking  of  the  caricatures  of  that  day,  I  am  re- 
minded that  the  first  political  caricature  which  I  re- 
member to  have  seen  was  entitled  "  The  Fox  of  Kin- 
derhook."  It  was  a  large  lithograph  of  a  fox  curled 
up  at  the  entrance  of  his  den  in  the  rocks,  and  in 
place  of  his  head  was  substituted  the  shrewd,  sagacious 
face  of  Martin  Van  Buren.  At  that  time^  though 
John  Tyler  was  President,  Mr.  Van  Buren  was  still  a 
political  power,  not  merely  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
but  in  the  country  at  large.  Yet  to-day  he  is  nothing 
more  than  a  memory.  Senator  of  the  United  States, 
Minister  at  the  Court  of  St.  James's,  Secretary  of  State, 
and  finally  President  of  the  United  States,  his  was  a 
most  illustrious  record,  yet  how  many  are  able  to  re- 
call the  story  of  his  statesmanship  ?  Stat  nominis  um- 
bra. We  speak  without  thought  when  we  say  of  this 
or  that  man  who  has  managed  to  achieve  distinction 
that  his  name  and  achievements  will  never  be  forgot- 
ten. A  caricature  is  as  apt  to  fix  fame  as  a  library  of 
biographies. 

But  the  fire  has  almost  gone  out,  the  chair  on  the 
other  side  of  my  old-fashioned  grate  in  which  my 
grandmother  used  to  sit  is  empty,  the  familiar  spirits 
of  the  past  have  vanished  in  anticipation  of  cock-crow- 
ing, and  I  very  much  fear  that  some  gentle  Charles 
Lamb  of  the  present  generation  will  whisper  in  my 
ear:  "  I  never  heard  you  do  anything  else  but  preach." 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  III 


CHAPTER   X 

CHRISTMAS  IN  THE  OLDER  DAYS  —  A  FLIRTATION  UNDER  THE  MIS- 
TLETOE— SIXPENNY  SLEIGH-RIDES  —  LITERATURE  OF  OUR  BOYHOOD 
—  SANTA  GLAUS  IN  OUR  GRANDMOTHERS*  HOMES  —  DECORATING 
THE  CHURCHES 

THERE  is  one  modern  improvement  which  would 
have  delighted  my  grandmother's  heart — the  more 
general  observance  of  Christmas  Day.  Forty  years 
ago  the  Episcopalians  were  the  only  religious  body 
that  decorated  and  opened  their  churches  on  that  day, 
and  made  it,  as  it  should  be,  the  one  day  of  all  the 
year  sacredly  set  apart  for  home  and  the  little  ones. 
The  Roman  Catholics  confined  their  celebration  to  an 
early  mass,  and  the  members  of  Protestant  denomina- 
tions in  many  cases  held  it  to  be  safer  to  make  their 
presents  on  New-year's  Day,  and  thus  to  avoid  even 
the  appearance  of  a  ritualistic  tendency.  This  was  a 
fading  relic  of  ancient  Puritanism,  but  was  still  so 
marked  that  certain  of  my  adult  friends  would  think 
it  necessary  to  remark  that  they  "  did  not  believe  in 
Christmas,"  when  putting  a  gift  into  my  little  hands 
on  the  first  day  of  the  year.  Somehow  it  gave  me  a 
chill,  then,  to  hear  this  formal  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence of  the  tenderest  episode  in  humanity's  story. 
I  am  glad  to  see  our  whole  busy  city  gathering  at  the 
cradle  of  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem,  and  in  spite  of  its 
creed  of  indifferentism,  paying  homage  to  the  divine 
spirit  of  the  time.  In  the  Christmas  atmosphere  of 


112  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK 

our  streets  and  homes,  the  Christmas  bustle  of  our 
shops  and  markets,  the  Christmas  sunshine  in  all 
faces,  the  Christmas  neighborliness  of  all  hearts,  and 
the  Christmas  services  and  sermons  in  all  churches,  I 
see  signs  of  a  recognition  of  humanity's  oneness  of 
feelings  and  aims  such  as  are  vouchsafed  through  no 
other  channel. 

"And  he  took  a  little  child  and  set  it  in  the  midst 
of  them."  There  comes  back  to  me  now  the  memory 
of  a  Christmas  season  passed  in  the  military  prison  of 
the  Confederates  in  Richmond.  An  officer  of  the 
Confederate  guard  came  into  the  room  where  the 
Federal  officers  were  quartered,  bringing  his  little  girl, 
a  child  of  three  or  four  years  of  age,  with  him.  The 
sunny-haired  babe  was  a  revelation  to  us.  Thought 
flashed  back  to  desolate  homes  in  the  North,  and  fire- 
sides that  waited  in  vain  for  us.  There  was  not  a  dry 
eye  in  the  room,  I  think,  and  yet  those  ragged,  un- 
kempt men  had  nothing  but  smiles  for  the  little  one, 
and  crowded  around  her  with  gifts  of  trinkets  they 
had  carved  during  their  long  hours  of  leisure.  The 
babe  did  not  know  that  she  was  a  preacher,  and  her 
congregation  did  not  realize,  then  at  least,  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  prophecy  that  a  little  child  should  lead 
them.  Set  in  the  midst  of  them,  she  did  lead  them  a 
step  nearer  heaven.  "  Yes,"  said  my  grandmother, 
when  I  told  her  of  this,  and  the  tears  were  flowing 
freely  as  she  tried  to  fix  a  grim  smile  upon  her 
gentle  face — "  yes,  Felix,  and  I  suppose  you  stood 
there  and  stared,  too,  and  made  a  gumpey  of  your- 
self." Precisely  what  kind  of  animal  or  apparition 
a  "  gumpey "  was  I  have  never  been  able  to  deter- 
mine, but  it  was  rather  a  favorite  synonyme  with  our 


A  TOUR   AROUND  NEW   YORK  113 

elders  for  something  horrible  and  awkward  in  the 
extreme. 

Let  us  have  no  mistakes  to  start  with.  We  children 
had  a  good  time  on  Christmas  Day.  That  was  our 
contract,  and  we  carried  it  out.  Let  me  look  back  as 
far  as  I  can,  and  see  how  a  school-boy  prospered  at 
the  hands  of  St.  Nicholas.  And  right  here  let  me  say 
that  even  as  late  as  the  year  of  which  I  speak,  some 
of  the  stanch  old  Dutch  families  celebrated  the  feast 
of  St.  Nicholas  on  his  natal  day  and  gave  their  Santa- 
Claus  gifts  nearly  three  weeks  before  Christmas — even 
at  the  last  yielding  reluctantly  to  the  English  innova- 
tion that  transferred  the  traditions  of  the  old  city's 
patron  saint  to  the  holiday  which  England's  Church 
most  honored. 

A  light  snow  was  falling  when  I  ran  out  of  our 
house  in  St.  John's  Park,  upon  Christmas  Eve,  on  my 
way  to  an  early  celebration  of  the  holiday  at  Mr. 
Greenough's  school  in  Franklin  Street.  The  sedate 
New  England  pedagogue  was  a  rigid  Presbyterian, 
but  it  was  understood  that  he  relaxed  for  this  once 
on  account  of  his  Episcopalian  scholars.  We  had 
recitations  and  dialogues,  followed  by  lemonade  and 
cake,  and  were  home  before  nine  o'clock.  Master 
Felix  Oldboy  distinguished  himself  on  this  occasion 
by  reciting  "The  Night  Before  Christmas,"  which  at 
that  time  was  newly  written.  I  remember  nothing 
more  vividly  than  my  lonesome  walk  home  on  this 
Christmas  Eve.  It  was  only  nine  o'clock,  but  nobody 
was  abroad.  I  crept  through  the  drifting  snow,  past 
the  old  French  Church  on  Franklin  Street,  past  the 
great  Dutch  Church,  past  the  tall  flag-staff  at  Franklin 
Street  and  West  Broadway — ah,  what  a  long  way  it 


114  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

seemed  then  to  my  little  feet,  and  how  short  a  dis- 
tance now !— and  up  through  Varick,  by  quiet  houses 
that  showed  glimpses  of  light  within,  but  whose  blinds 
were  decorously  closed.  It  seemed  to  me,  I  remem- 
ber, as  if  everybody  had  gone  to  bed,  until  I  came  to 
the  Park,  and  there,  through  the  long,  thin  swirls  of 
snow,  through  the  swaying,  feathered  crests  of  the 
trees,  I  saw  the  flashes  of  light  from  many  a  window, 
showing  that  our  near  neighbors  at  any  rate  were  ob- 
livious of  all  ancient  edicts  against  the  royal  claims  of 
mince-pie,  egg-nogg,  and  Santa  Claus. 

At  our  house  we  always  made  much  of  Christmas 
Eve.  When  I  had  entered  and  removed  my  cap  and 
woollen  comforter  (the  boy  of  that  day  never  wore  an 
overcoat),  I  found  the  parlors  radiant  with  festoons  of 
evergreens  and  innumerable  candles,  and  filled  with 
visitors.  To  my  horror,  I  was  almost  immediately 
stood  up  before  them  and  made  to  recite  my  "  piece  " 
— for  there  was  then  no  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Children,  or  to  their  audiences.  But  there 
was  fun  enough  afterwards  to  make  up  for  this — two 
long  hours  of  wild  dissipation  followed.  The  elder 
people  played  whist  (and  they  did  it  savagely,  too,  at 
intervals),  and  we  children  had  our  games  of  u  pillows 
and  keys,"  "stage-coach,"  and  "going  to  Jerusalem," 
with  plenty  of  forfeits  and  exquisite  schemes  for  their 
redemption.  The  big  people  had  cake  and  punch  be- 
tween whiles;  we  juniors  had  cake  and  mild  egg-nogg. 
Shall  I  ever  forget  that  night  ?  It  was  then  that  for 
the  first  time  I  discovered  that  I  was  the  possessor  of 
a  heart,  only  to  find  that  I  had  made  it  over  indis- 
solubly  to  a  lovely  being  of  seven  summers,  who  wore 
pigtails  and  pantalets,  and  whose  father  got  awfully 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  115 

cross  over  whist,  and  lived  in  Pike  Street.  Indeed,  she 
was  bewitching,  and  a  most  arrant  little  flirt  withal. 
It  was  at  her  knees  I  threw  the  pillow  every  time  it 
came  to  me,  and  I  kissed  hef  in  a  mad  whirl  of  de- 
light, while  she  would  coolly  cross  over  to  a  squint- 
eyed  rival  of  mine  and  smile  sweetly  as  he  bent  down 
to  kiss  her.  But  I  had  the  advantage  of  knowing  the 
locality.  So  I  led  her  artfully  away,  and  in  the  back 
entry  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  exchanging  with  her  a 
vow  of  eternal  fidelity.  The  other  children  shouted 
at  us  in  chorus,  but  we  did  not  mind  it.  We  were 
prepared  for  persecution.  It  was  all  that  I  could  do 
to  tear  myself  away  from  her  at  last.  Her  father 
must  have  guessed  my  anguish,  for  he  roared  out  to 
me  at  the  door:  "  Kiss  her,  Felix,  my  boy;  kiss  Anna 
for  her  Christmas."  Blushing,  I  obeyed.  The  tender 
Anna  pressed  a  moist  and  sticky  sugar-plum  into  my 
hand  at  parting.  I  kept  it  for  a  whole  week  in  my 
pocket.  It  was  black  when  my  grandmother,  on  a 
weekly  voyage  of  investigation  of  my  pockets,  found 
it  and  threw  it  away. 

Do  you  suppose  these  people  walked  home  through 
the  storm  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  One  of  the  old  stage 
sleighs,  with  four  horses,  was  provided  for  them,  and 
when  it  drove  away  from  the  door  thirty  human  souls 
with  their  accompanying  bodies  were  packed  into  it 
for  freight.  They  sang  a  lusty  Christmas  carol  as  they 
went ;  and  the  watchman  of  the  period,  yclept  a  leath- 
er-head, only  smiled  as  they  swept  by,  and  remarked 
to  himself  that  they  were  having  a  good  time.  They 
did  have  a  good  time.  It  took  little  to  amuse  them, 
and  their  enjoyment  was  thorough.  To  them  the  dis- 
ease ennui  was  unknown.  They  even  found  it  fun  at 


Il6  A    TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 

odd  times  to  embark  in  a  Kipp  &  Brown  sleigh  and  ride 
up  to  Chelsea  and  back.  As  for  the  boy  part  of  that 
generation,  we  could  have  ridden  forever  in  those  great 
schooners  of  the  streets.  Six,  eight,  or  ten  horses 
drew  the  sleighs,  and  sometimes  they  were  so  crowd- 
ed inside  and  out  that  not  a  fly  could  have  found  rest- 
ing-place there.  How  they  whirled  through  the  drifts, 
flew  over  ice,  careened  on  the  hillocks  where  the  side- 
walks had  emptied  their  burdens  of  snow,  and  with 
shriek  and  song  and  shout  from  the  inmates  dashed  by 
the  smiling  and  amused  lines  of  pedestrians.  But  they 
never  escaped  delicate  attentions  from  the  boys  who 
had  no  sixpences  with  which  to  purchase  a  ride.  These 
would  gather  at  the  corners,  collect  heaps  of  snow-balls, 
and  then  open  fire  upon  the  excursionists.  It  was  of  no 
avail  to  expostulate.  The  police  never  interfered  with 
any  legitimate  fun.  All  that  could  be  done  was  liter- 
ally to  bow  before  the  onset,  and  run  the  gantlet  as 
resignedly  as  possible.  Ah  me !  it  is  a  delight  to  re- 
call these  wild  excursions  through  Canal  Street,  up 
Hudson,  beyond  the  rural  homes  of  old  Greenwich 
Village,  out  among  the  open  streets  and  surviving 
farm-houses  of  the  hamlet  of  Chelsea.  It  was  only  a 
sixpenny  ride,  this  moonlight  dash  beside  the  Hudson, 
but  it  had  an  element  of  romance  in  it  which  sets  my 
blood  tingling  as  I  think  of  it.  I  wonder  if  the  girl 
who  sat  beside  me  is  still  living?  Many  and  many  an 
old  boy  (it  would  be  irreverent  to  speak  of  old  girls, 
wouldn't  it  ?)  will  feel  the  sluggish  heart-beat  quicken 
as  he  reads  this  paragraph,  and  will  drop  the  paper, 
close  his  eyes,  lean  back,  and  think.  And  those  who 
watch  his  smile  will  see  again  the  likeness  of  the  ur- 
chin of  fifty  years  ago. 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  117 

It  was  a  religious  observance  with  my  sisters  and 
me  to  select  carefully  the  largest  stockings  owned  in 
the  family  and  to  tack  them  securely,  at  an  early  hour 
in  the  evening,  to  the  old-fashioned  wooden  mantel- 
piece in  the  basement.  This  was  a  ceremony  we  in- 
trusted to  no  hands  but  our  own.  My  little  sisters — 
I  can  scarcely  see  them  now  as  I  look  back  through 
the  mist  of  tears — our  little  sisters,  I  should  say,  for 
this  night  I  carry  with  me,  I  am  sure,  the  tender  mem- 
ories of  many  an  old  boy  other  than  he  who  writes 
this  passage — they  cannot  be  forgotten.  It  was  only 
yesterday  that  in  the  quaint  attire  of  their  girlhood 
they  trundled  their  hoops  around  the  park  and  flung 
back  their  curls  to  the  autumn  winds — only  yesterday 
we  drew  them  to  school  on  our  sleds,  and  defended 
them  chivalrously  against  the  cannonade  of  snow-balls 
— only  yesterday,  it  seems,  and  yet  they  have  been 
dust  and  ashes  for  more  than  thirty  years.  To-night 
they  come  back  to  revisit  us — your  sisters  and  mine, 
of  whom  the  world  says,  "  Let  me  see ;  they  died 
young,  did  they  not?"  But  we  know  better  ;  we  know 
they  never  died  at  all,  for  our  heart  in  its  love  keeps 
them  immortal. 

At  early  daybreak  we  three,  my  sisters  and  I,  darted 
down  the  stairs  in  swift  silence  to  the  basement.  We 
did  not  find  enough  in  the  stockings  to  content  a  child 
of  to-day,  but  we  were,  nevertheless,  as  happy  as  the 
children  of  a  king.  The  fact  is  that  the  child  of  to- 
day has  ceased  to  be  appreciative.  Toys  have  become 
so  many  and  expensive,  juvenile  literature  has  grown 
so  extensive  and  luxurious,  and  all  the  appliances  for 
the  coddling  of  the  young  have  so  multiplied,  that 
everything  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  by  the  youth- 


Il8  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

ful  constituent.  But  the  fathers  and  grandsires  of  the 
existing  race  of  small  Sybarites  were  much  more  cir- 
cumscribed. Most  of  the  toys  of  their  day  were  rude 
and  cheap*  and  many  of  them,  I  am  bound  to  admit, 
undeniably  homely.  These  primitive  animals,  dolls, 
soldiers,  and  arks  were  voted  "  plenty  good  enough  to 
be  all  broken  to  pieces  in  a  day  or  two."  But  we  were 
happy  in  their  possession.  No  one  thought  of  finding 
fault  with  the  want  of  expression  or  natural  hair  in  a 
doll,  or  the  fact  that  an  animal's  legs  were  cut  bias,  or 
a  soldier  had  no  eyes.  I  verily  believe  that  if  I  had 
been  dropped  suddenly  into  one  of  the  huge  toy  marts 
of  to-day,  I  should  have  said  to  myself  that  dear  old 
Aladdin  had  lent  me  his  lamp,  and  I  had  unconscious- 
ly been  rubbing  it.  As  for  candies,  our  parents  went 
down  to  the  candy-store  of  R.  L.  &  A.  Stuart,  at  the 
corner  of  Chambers  and  Hudson  streets  (where  I  have 
stood  on  the  sidewalk  by  the  hour  and  watched  the 
progress  of  candy  manufacture  in  the  basement), 
bought  us  each  a  horn  of  sugar-plums,  with  an  old- 
fashioned  picture  on  it,  and  broken  candy  to  an  amount 
limited  only  by  the  size  of  our  stockings.  This  was 
wholesome  and  healthful,  as  were  the  apples  and  or- 
anges that  were  used  as  makeweights  to  fill  heel  and 
toe  of  the  stocking,  and  give  it  the  proper  bulge. 

I  am  sure  the  children  of  to-day  do  not  appreciate 
all  that  has  been  done  for  them  in  literature  during 
the  past  thirty  years.  There  was  but  one  weekly  pa- 
per published  then  for  the  little  ones  —  the  Youths 
Companion,  printed  at  Boston,  and  one  magazine,  pub- 
lished by  old  Tommy  Stanford,  on  lower  Broadway — 
both  of  them  about  as  dreary  in  point  of  interest  as 
could  well  be  imagined.  Now  every  book-firm  in  our 


THE    ILLUMINATION    IN    NEW   YORK    ON    THE    OCCASION     OF    THE 
INAUGURATION    OF    PRESIDENT    WASHINGTON 


A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  121 

leading  cities  is  putting  its  best  work  into  books  and 
periodicals  for  children,  and  our  most  brilliant  writers 
are  catering  to  their  tastes.  Do  the  boys  who  were 
my  contemporaries  remember  the  literary  chaff  that 
was  fed  to  us?  There  were  the  soul -thrilling  and 
mirth-provoking  adventures  of  Sandford  and  Merton, 
with  that  irredeemable  prig,  Mr.  Tutor  Barlow,  and  his 
endless  object-lessons.  It  was  a  highly  moral  book, 
also  insufferably  dull,  and  every  mischievous  boy  had 
at  least  six  copies  of  it  presented  to  him  in  a  lifetime. 
From  the  Sunday-school  library  of  St.  John's  Chapel 
I  once  drew  the  blood-curdling  account  of  the  great 
plague  in  London,  which  Mr.  Daniel  Defoe  wrote  en- 
tirely from  his  own  imagination,  but  which  I  devoutly 
believed  to  be  true.  It  was  so  unspeakably  horrible 
that  it  gave  me  a  succession  of  nightmares  for  a  week. 
A  history  of  Trinity  Church,  the  life  of  an  early  bish- 
op, a  record  of  frontier  missionary  work  in  Ontario 
County,  the  exhilarating  hymns  of  Dr.  Watts,  a  life  of 
Daniel,  and  a  Boys'  Own  Book  were  gifts  made  to  me 
from  time  to  time,  with  others  so  dreary  that  I  have 
been  glad  to  forgetf*  their  titles.  But  I  made  it  up  in 
other  ways.  Surreptitiously  I  formed  acquaintance 
with  Master  Humphrey  and  Little  Nell;  enjoyed  a 
rainy  afternoon  with  Quilp  in  his  summer-house,  lis- 
tened to  Dick  Swiveller  as  he  played  upon  his  flute, 
and  laughed  at  the  antics  of  Sam  Weller;  felt  my 
heart  beat  high  when  Ivanhoe  rode  into  the  lists,  and 
chuckled,  as  an  incipient  Latinist  had  a  right  to  do,  at 
the  scholastic  conceits  of  that  prince  of  adventurers, 
Major  Dugald  Dalgetty.  These  books  I  would  read 
late  at  night  by  the  fire  in  the  back  parlor,  and  when 
detected,  and  the  craving  for  stronger  mental  food  ad- 


122  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

mitted,  I  was  introduced  at  the^age  of  twelve  to  the 
fellowship  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  the  delights  of  the 
"Arabian  Nights,"  and  the  secrets  of  Charles  Dickens's 
"  Christmas  Carol."  Dear  old  Robinson  Crusoe !  I 
was  sorry  when  I  learned  that  he  was  but  a  creation 
of  Defoe's  brain — for  I  had  read  his  story  when  lying 
hidden  under  the  bushes  of  St.  John's  Park,  and  had 
crept  out  to  search  there  for  the  strange  footprint  in 
the  sand. 

There  is  one  feature  of  the  Christmas  season  which 
I  shall  never  cease  to  miss,  and  whose  loss  I  shall  al- 
ways deplore.  In  the  younger  and  more  primitive 
days  of  the  city  the  ladies  of  the  various  parishes  took 
upon  them  the  task  of  preparing  the  decorations  for 
the  churches.  There  were  no  wreaths  or  stars  or  cross- 
es to  be  had  in  the  markets,  but  the  evergreens  were 
ordered  in  bulk  from  the  country.  Huge  hemlock- 
trees,  great  bushes  of  laurel,  masses  of  ground-pine, 
cedar  and  pine  branches — all  were  dumped  in  one  het- 
erogeneous heap  in  the  Sunday-school  rooms,  and  the 
deft  fingers  of  the  ladies  were  torn  and  blackened  in 
moulding  the  pile  into  shapes  of  beauty.  But  there 
were  three  weeks  of  solid  enjoyment  in  it.  We  chil- 
dren put  the  greens  into  bunches  and  handed  them  to 
our  elders.  Sometimes  it  was  a  quiet  young  gentle- 
man whose  heart  was  woven  into  the  wreath  the  maid- 
en was  weaving.  Sometimes  it  was  a  buxom  widow 
who  kept  half  a  dozen  gentlemen  and  twenty  children 
at  work.  I  remember  that,  small  as  we  were,  we  had 
our  favorite  taskmasters,  and  carefully  avoided  sundry 
dictatorial  old  maids.  As  I  grew  older,  I  discovered 
that  it  was  almost  as  pleasant  working  among  the 
Christmas  greens  as  battling  for  favors  under  the  mis- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  123 

tletoe.  Besides,  there  was  a  sublime  satisfaction  in, 
looking  up  from  the  family  pew,  during  a  prosy  ser- 
mon, and  watching  a  wreath  certain  fair  fingers  had 
woven.  What,  in  comparison  with  such  a  treasure, 
does  the  purchased  decoration  signify?  Indeed,  the 
dressing  of  a  church  for  Christmas  has  become  a  lost 
art.  The  sexton  attends  to  it  now.  He  buys  a  few 
trees,  crosses,  and  wreaths,  and  sticks  them  here  or 
there  as  his  fancy  dictates.  But  in  the  dear  old  days 
of  lang  syne  we  elaborated  a  plan  months  beforehand, 
and  made  the  sanctuary  a  bower  of  Christmas  life  and 
glory — creating  in  those  plain,  old-fashioned  interiors 
a  "  beauty  of  holiness." 


COPPER    CROWN    FROM    CUPOLA    OF    KING'S   COLLEGE 


124  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 


CHAPTER    XI 

A  METROPOLIS  OF  STRANGERS — SOME  OLD  MANSION-HOUSES  ON  THE 
EAST  SIDE — CHARACTERISTICS  OF  BOWERY  LIFE — BULL'S  HEAD  AND 
THE  AMPHITHEATRE — THE  STUYVESANT  PEAR-TREE — A  HAUNTED 
HOUSE 

No  historian  of  New  York  gives  half  so  graphic  a 
picture  of  the  embryo  metropolis  of  fifty  years  ago  as 
my  correspondent,  who  writes :  "  I  do  not  think  that 
people  can  understand  the  size  of  our  city  in  these 
days.  We  all  knew  '  who  was  who.'  Old  Mrs.  Stuart, 
in  black  brocade,  selling  candy  by  the  penny's  worth 
at  Chambers  and  Greenwich  streets ;  Katy  Ferguson, 
on  Hudson  Street,  making  all  the  jelly  and  sweet- 
meats, and  Mrs.  Isaat  Sayres,  in  Harrison  Street,  pre- 
paring all  the  wedding-cake,  were  types  of  the  time. 
Everybody  knew  them,  as  all  knew  the  ministers  and 
our  few  rich  men." 

The  city  is  changed,  indeed,  since  then.  Not  many 
months  ago  I  stood  at  my  window  on  Washington 
Square,  looking  out  upon  a  desolate  fall  day,  and  hesi- 
tating whether  to  venture  into  the  power  of  the  storm. 
A  drearier  morning  I  had  never  seen,  and  there  at  my 
feet  was  a  little  funeral  procession  ready  to  start  from 
the  apartment-house  next  door.  One  becomes  used 
to  such  sights  in  a  great  city,  but  my  heart  ached  that 
morning  for  the  people  who  had  to  carry  their  dead 
to  the  grave  amid  such  utterly  desolate  surroundings. 
They  were  strangers,  as  I  supposed,  and  I  had  no  cu- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


125 


riosity  to  watch  them,  but  a  day  or  two  afterwards  I. 
learned  that  this  had  been  the  funeral  of  an  old  and 
dear  friend.  He  had  gone  away  from  his  Long  Island 
home  a  year  before  in  search  of  health,  and  had  re- 
cently returned  to  the  city  to  die.  It  is  infinitely  easy 
in  this  cosmopolitan  community  to  drop  out  of  the  cur- 
rent, and  tears  for  the  dead  are  a  luxury  which  a  busy 
age  is  apt  to  grudge. 

From  the  top  of  Chatham  Square  one  could  once 
look    upon    two    celebrated    mansions  —  the   Walton 


THE   WALTON   HOUSE   IN   LATER   YEARS 


126  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

House  and  the  home  of  Col.  Henry  Rutgers.  When 
Pearl  Street  was  known  as  Queen  Street,  and  was  an 
aristocratic  quarter,  when  its  gardens  reached  down  to 
the  East  River,  and  its  neighborhood  was  free  from 
the  contaminations  of  shops,  the  Walton  House  was 
in  its  glory.  The  richness  of  its  furnishings,  its  gold 
plate,  and  its  magnificent  entertainments,  were  quoted 
in  Parliament  as  an  excuse  for  taxing  the  American 
colonies.  As  a  boy  I  read  of  this,  and  I  used  to  go  out 
of  my  way,  as  opportunity  offered,  to  look  at  it,  and 
try  to  recall  in  my  mind  its  vanished  splendors.  Its 
gentility  then  had  grown  very  shabby.  The  high  ceil- 
ings were  there,  and  the  door-ways  through  which 
Howe  and  Clinton  and  Andre  had  passed,  and  the 
floor  on  which  a  future  King  of  England  had  danced 
a  minuet  with  the  fairest  of  New  York's  rebel  daugh- 
ters ;  but  it  was  inexpressibly  sad  to  witness  the  ad- 
vance of  squalor,  and  I  was  not  sorry  when  the  build- 
ing was  torn  down.  The  Rutgers  homestead  occupied, 
when  I  was  a  boy,  the  block  bounded  by  Clinton,  Rut- 
gers, Madison,  and  Cherry  streets,  a  relic  of  the  great 
Rutgers  farm.  Colonel  Rutgers  was  a  model  citizen. 
They  had  no  coal  strikes  in  his  day,  for  they  used  no 
coal  then,  but  once  in  a  while  they  had  a  fuel  famine. 
Once,  during  the  '205,  the  city  was  ice-bound,  and  no 
wood  could  be  brought  in  across  the  rivers,  and  the 
suffering  of  the  poor  was  terrible  for  a  while.  Colonel 
Rutgers  distributed  his  supply  among  his  poor  neigh- 
bors ;  and  when  this  was  exhausted,  even  tore  down 
his  fences  and  cut  down  his  trees  for  their  use.  It  was 
from  the  limb  of  a  tree  in  his  orchard  that  Capt.  Na- 
than Hale,  the  martyr  spy  of  the  Revolution,  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  hanged.  But  even  here  tradition 


is  at  fault ;  for  one 
authority  stoutly 
maintains  that  he 
was  hanged  on  Beek- 
man  Hill,  near  the 
Beekman  mansion, 
and  another  insists 
that  the  place  of  his 
execution  was  the 
Commons,  the  pres- 
ent City  Hall  Park. 
The  weight  of  testi- 
mony favors  the  Rut- 
gers orchard.  At  any 
rate,  he  was  sacrificed 
on  our  city's  soil,  and 
we  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten it.  Andre  has  his  monument ;  Hale  has  none. 
As  I  turn  into  the  Bowery  from  Chatham  Square  I 
am  once  more  reminded  of  the  sad  story  of  Charlotte 


DOORWAY  IN  THE  HALL  OF  THE 
WALTON  HOUSE 


128  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 

Temple.  On  the  north  side  of  Pell  Street,  just  west 
of  the  Bowery,  are  two  frame  houses  painted  yellow. 
In  one  of  these  the  unfortunate  girl,  whose  sorrows 
set  a  whole  generation  weeping,  ended  her  life — mur- 
dered by  a  British  officer  to  whom  she  had  trustingly 
given  her  heart.  The  stone  house  in  Art  Street  in 
which  she  had  lived  was  torn  down  long  ago.  The 
frame  house  that  screened  her  last  agonies  from  the 
sight  of  those  who  loved  her  and  would  have  rescued 
her  still  survives,  though  few  are  aware  that  there  is 
any  romance  connected  with  such  an  apparently  com- 
monplace building. 

But  the  Bowery  has  never  been  a  place  of  sentiment 
or  romance.  Its  life  was  largely  passed  out-doors;  its 
people  loved  the  street  and  its  excitements.  Those 
who  are  living  and  remember  all  about  it,  have  told 
me  of  the  crowd  that  daily  gathered  around  No.  17 
Bowery  to  see  the  Boston  stage,  carrying  the  United 
States  mail,  depart  and  arrive.  It  was  a  great  event 
in  that  day.  Those  who  travelled  by  coach  down 
into  the  wilds  of  Massachusetts  Bay  were  regarded 
as  a  species  of  Argonauts,  and  indeed  the  journey 
by  such  mode  would  be  a  formidable  one  to-day. 
Beyond  the  Bowery  Village  the  line  of  travel  that  is 
now  known  as  Third  Avenue  was  called  the  Boston 
Road,  a  title  that  is  still  maintained  on  the  other  side 
of  Harlem  River,  in  spite  of  changes  caused  by  an- 
nexation. To  my  young  mind  the  Bowery  was  al- 
ways associated  with  the  excitement  of  the  venerable 
but  lively  institution  known  as  Bull's  Head.  I  can 
recall  that  institution  as  it  existed  on  Third  Avenue, 
where  a  bank  stands  as  a  monument  to  its  name,  and 
the  legends  that  I  have  heard  in  connection  with  the 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  129 

old  Bull's  Head  Tavern  are  legion.  From  the  time  of 
our  Dutch  ancestors  until  modern  monopoly  swept 
the  business  into  the  New  Jersey  abattoir,  New  York 
did  not  know  how  to  exist  without  its  cattle  market, 
and  when  it  disappeared  one  of  the  liveliest  features 
of  the  city's  trade  was  blotted  out. 

The  Bowery  Theatre  was  erected  on  the  site  of  the 
Bull's  Head  Tavern  in  1826,  the  Mayor  laying  the  cor- 
ner-stone. One  of  my  correspondents  writes  of  this 
theatre  that  "  it  was  burned  to  the  ground  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1828,  at  an  early  hour  of  the  evening.  When 
its  huge  columns  fell  it  shook  the  whole  city  from 
centre  to  circumference,  as  I  well  remember."  Alarms 


AN    OLD    GOOSE-NECK    ENGINE 

of  fire  were  frequent  even  then,  sometimes  reaching 
five  hundred  in  a  year.  The  firemen  worked  well 
(and,  it  must  be  admitted,  they  fought  well,  too),  but 
their  methods  were  not  sufficient  to  check  such  fires 
as  the  burning  of  the  Park  Theatre  and  the  Bowery 
made.  When  the  Park  Theatre  burned,  the  site  was 
abandoned  as  a  place  of  amusement,  but  the  Bowery 
Theatre  rose  again  from  its  ashes,  and  kept  its  old 
features  unchanged  for  half  a  century. 


130  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

The  street  itself  has  always  been  a  great  place  for 
"  shows."  One  of  my  earliest  memories  of  the  Bowery 
is  standing  in  front  of  a  brilliantly  painted  canvas  on 
that  thoroughfare,  not  far  from  Chatham  Square,  star- 
ing in  open-eyed  wonder  at  the  pictures  of  a  calf  with 
two  heads,  warranted  to  move  two  ways  at  the  same 
time,  and  a  pig  of  enormous  proportions.  This  is  a 
characteristic  of  the  street  to  this  day.  Then,  too, 
there  was  the  New  York  Circus  Amphitheatre,  an 
earthly  paradise  to  the  small  boy  of  the  period.  Ah, 
what  a  lovely  place  it  was !  That  is,  it  was  not  beau- 
tiful to  the  eye,  but,  on  the  contrary,  coarse  and  com- 
mon. The  canvas  overhead  was  unclean,  the  seats  were 
dirty,  the  sawdust  smelled  abominable,  and  the  sur- 
roundings were  cheap  and  tawdry.  But  when  the  oil 
lamps  were  turned  up,  and  began  to  glare  and  smoke, 
when  the  band  played,  when  the  solemn  procession  of 
equestrians  entered,  when  the  vividly  painted  goddesses 
of  the  arena  followed  them  on  prancing  steeds,  we 
boys  began  to  climb  up  to  the  seventh  heaven.  We 
reached  it  when  the  burly  clown  threw  himself  at  a 
jump  into  the  sawdust  and  uttered  the  welcome,  "  Here 
we  are  again  !"  I  hardly  expect  to  enjoy  anything 
sublunary  as  I  enjoyed  those  afternoons  at  the  Amphi- 
theatre. The  smell  of  sawdust  brings  it  all  back  to  me 
at  times,  and  then  phantom  horses  and  riders  paw  the 
air,  and  a  ghostly  clown  compels  my  very  soul  to 
chuckle  over  a  joke  that  tickled  the  children  of  Py- 
thagoras. 

Along  the  old  Boston  Road  once  stood  a  series  of 
mile -stones  that  extended  from  New  York  to  and 
through  the  land  of  the  Puritans.  One  of  these  still 
stands  on  the  Bowery,  near  Prince  Street,  bearing  the 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK  13! 

legend,  "  One  mile  from  the  City  Hall."  Another 
mile- stone  was  in  the  Bowery  Village,  which  half  a 
century  ago  clustered  around  the  site  of  the  present 
Cooper  Institute  and  old  St.  Mark's  Church.  Beyond 
this  point  the  Bowery  stretched,  always  a  noble  ave- 
nue, but  never  an  aristocratic  one,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  it  owed  its  existence  to  the  country-seats  of  gen- 
tlemen— the  "  bouweries  "  of  the  solid.  Dutch  burghers 
of  two  centuries  ago. 

As  I  remember  this  noted  thoroughfare,  it  was  a 
land  of  many  rival  carpet-stores,  from  which  long  lines 
of  carpeting  swayed  to  the  breeze  for  blocks,  festooned 
even  from  the  roof;  a  land  of  dry-goods  and  notion 
stores  that  have  since  emigrated  to  Grand  Street ;  a 
land,  even  from  "  way  back,"  of  the  pawnbroker  and 
dealer  in  musical  instruments  and  jewelry ;  a  land  of 
the  "  original  Jacobs  "  and  "  the  real  original  Jacobs  ;" 
a  land  of  oyster-saloons,  in  which  one  used  to  sit  in  a 
curtained  stall,  and  need  not  be  at  table  with  disagree- 
able neighbors  :  a  land  in  which  the  signs  of  the  oyster- 
houses  were  as  primitive  as  economy  could  suggest, 
consisting  only  of  a  round  red  ball  of  canvas,  into 
which  a  candle  was  thrust  for  illumination  at  night ;  a 
land  of  daguerrotypes  and  ambrotypes,  in  the  day  in 
which  the  invention  of  Daguerre  (which  our  own  Dr. 
Draper  had  just  anticipated  while  Professor  of  Chem- 
istry at  Hampden-Sydney  College,  Virginia)  was  still 
spoken  of  as  wonderful ;  a  land  of  flannel  shirts  and 
"  dickeys" — the  latter  being  false  shirt-fronts  tied  with 
strings  over  the  masculine  breast  to  conceal  the  flannel 
on  dress  occasions ;  a  land  in  which  the  church  build- 
ing did  not  flourish,  but  where  the  tavern  and  bar  were 
frequent ;  a  land  with  few  foreigners,  but  where  stal- 


132  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

wart  American  artisans  were  indigenous ;  a  land  in 
which  one  could  get  shaved  for  sixpence  or  have  the 
hair  cut  for  a  shilling,  in  a  shop  whose  floor  was  sanded 
and  whose  gentlemanly  proprietor  handed  you  a  small 
glass  at  the  close  to  see  whether  the  operation  was  suc- 
cessful ;  a  land  in  which  life  could  be  made  comfortable 
at  a  dollar  a  day,  and  board  could  be  had  at  its  hotels  for 
four  or  five  dollars  a  week,  though  horse-cars  were  un- 
known, the  telegraph  an  infant  industry  patronized  only 
by  the  rich,  and  lager  beer  a  vulgar  innovation  which 
even  Bowery  society  was  trying  to  frown  out  of  sight. 
It  was  over  two  hundred  years  ago  that  the  Govern- 
or and  Council  of  New  Amsterdam  gave  permission 
to  establish  a  hamlet  near  the  "  bouwerie  "  of  Governor 
Stuyvesant.  A  tavern,  a  blacksmith -shop,  and  half 
a  dozen  other  buildings  were  the  result.  Old  Peter 
Stuyvesant  contributed  a  chapel,  in  which  Hermanus 
Van  Hoboken  (from  whom  the  city  of  Hoboken  is 
named),  school-master  in  the  city,  read  service  every 
Sunday.  His  widow  devised  the  edifice  to  the  Re- 
formed Dutch  Church ;  not  many  years  afterwards  it 
passed  into  the  control  of  the  Episcopal  congregation 
of  "  St.  Mark's  Church  in  the  Bowery."  Under  its  con- 
secrated walls  rest  the  remains  of  the  stout  old  Dutch 
soldier  and  statesman,  and  I  wonder  how  many  who 
pass  by  care  to  read  the  inscription  on  the  tablet  set 
into  the  wall  that  records  the  life  and  death  of  one  of 
New  York's  great  men  of  old  time  ?  The  old  Govern- 
or's mansion,  a  large,  square,  imposing  edifice,  built 
of  small  yellow  brick  imported  from  Holland,  stood 
upon  a  site  close  by,  and  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  the 
Revolution.  His  well  was  still  in  existence  in  a  vacant 
lot  between  Eleventh  and  Twelfth  streets  when  I  was 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  133 

a  boy.  Two  other  mansion-houses  were  erected  by 
his  descendants,  one  near  the  East  River  shore,  close 
by  the  present  Avenue  A  and  Sixteenth  Street.  There 
are  many  who  still  remember  the  winding  lane  that 
led  to  it  from  the  old  Stuyvesant  pear-tree  at  Third 
Avenue  and  Thirteenth  Street.  The  other  mansion, 
known  as  the  "  Bowery  House,"  stood  at  Second  Ave- 
nue and  Ninth  Street.  There  is  a  host  of  us  who  can 
recall  the  famous  pear-tree,  said  to  have  been  .planted 
by  the  hands  of  doughty  Peter  Stuyvesant  himself, 
which  had  become  a  landmark  early  in  this  century, 
and  which  patriotic  care  had  protected  with  an  iron 
railing.  The  whole  city  mourned  when  the  patriarch 
of  more  than  two  centuries  at  length  fell.  An  effort 
was  made  to  plant  a  tree  of  the  same  stock  on  the  old 
site,  but  it  did  not  prove  a  success. 

At  the  upper  end  of  the  Bowery,  Vauxhall  Garden 
maintained  its  reputation  as  a  fashionable  place  of  re- 
freshment and  amusement  until  the  middle  of  the 
present  century.  A  handsome  saloon,  in  which  per- 
formances were  held,  and  trees  and  groves  under  which 
tables  were  set,  were  the  features  of  this  once  famous 
resort.  Admission  to  the  garden  was  free ;  to  the 
"saloon,"  two  shillings.  Here  Russell  sang,  classic 
tableaus  were  exhibited,  and  the  ballet  was  danced  in 
properly  lengthened  skirts. 

An  old  friend  writes  to  me  that  a  two-story,  peaked- 
roof  brick  house,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Bowery  (now 
Fourth  Avenue),  and  upon  the  site  of  the  present 
Cooper  Institute,  was  known  as  the  haunted  house. 
"  It  never  had  a  permanent  tenant,"  writes  my  friend, 
the  lawyer,  "  from  the  time  I  first  recollect  it,  nearly 
sixty  years  ago,  until  the  time  of  its  demolition,  some 


THE    STUYVESANT    PEAR-TREE 


thirty  years  since.  The  ghosts,  it  was  said,  uncere- 
moniously flung  the  rash  occupants  into  the  streets  as 
soon  as  the  shades  of  evening  had  descended  upon 
their  first  day  of  attempted  occupation." 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  135 


CHAPTER   XII 

OUR  CITY  BURIAL-PLOTS — ILLUSTRIOUS  DUST  AND  ASHES — A  WOMAN'S 
FIFTY  YEARS  OF  WAITING  —  THREE  HEBREW  CEMETERIES  —  THE 
BURKING  EPISODE — SLAVES  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

"  FELIX,"  said  my  grandmother,  with  an  altogether 
unaccustomed  solemnity,  which  was  emphasized  by 
the  silence  of  her  knitting-needles,  "do  you  believe 
that  the  angels  are  in  any  way  like  the  cherubim 
carved  on  the  tombstones  in  old  Trinity  Church-yard, 
all  head  and  wings,  and  nothing  else?  I  hope  not," 
continued  the  dear  old  lady,  presently,  "  for  it  would 
be  awful  to  live  with  such  creatures  for  even  a  thou- 
sand years.  Well,  well,  it  doesn't  signify.  I  suppose 
we  could  get  used  to  that,  too.  But,  Felix,  just  im- 
agine your  poor  old  grandmother  parading  a  street  in 
the  New  Jerusalem  in  such  company.  I  really  think 
I'd  have  to  ask  him  to  go  back  and  fasten  on  his  body. 
I'm  afraid  that  I  should,  even  if  I  had  to  offend  him." 

Quaint,  and  in  some  respects  horribly  suggestive,  as 
are  the  winged  heads  that  adorn  many  of  the  burial- 
stones  in  the  church-yard  of  old  Trinity  and  St.  Paul's, 
I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  would  want  them  changed. 
They  belong  to  an  era  in  which  the  imagination  and 
art  were  alike  crude,  but  an  era  of  sterling  virtues. 
There  was  no  poetry  in  the  psalms  in  metre  that  were 
sung  in  the  congregations,  but  the  poetry  of  an  honest 
.and  patriotic  life  irradiated  church  and  home.  It  is  a 
long  and  beautiful  record  that  is  unfolded  in  what  was 


136 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 


once  the  new  burying-ground  of  New  Amsterdam,  far 
away  from  the  little  dorp,  or  village,  that  clustered 
around  Old  Slip,  Coenties  Slip,  the  great  dock,  and 
the  fort,  but  is  now  known  as  Trinity  Church-yard. 


Its  earliest  tomb-stone 
embalmed  the  memory 
of  a  young  Holland 
maiden  who  was  buried 
here,  in  sight  of  the 
broad  river,  and  with 
fields  and  woods  on  all 

COENTIES   SLIP   IN  THE  DUTCH  TIMES     sides,     in      1639 mOTQ 

than  half  a  century  be- 
fore the  first  Trinity  Church  was  erected.  Its  latest 
graves  hold  the  ashes  of  men  who  fought  for  the  union 
of  the  States  five  and  twenty  years  ago.  I  have  always 
honored  the  parish  of  old  Trinity  for  preserving  intact 
these  down-town  resting-places  of  the  dead.  They  are 
not  merely  pleasant  breathing-spots  amid  the  din  of 
business  warfare,  but  they  are  unresting  preachers  of 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  137 

shadow  and  reality.  Millions  of  dollars  have  been  of- 
fered for  the  land  ;  projects  have  been  mooted  to  drive 
thoroughfares  through  the  plots  which  our  Saxon  an- 
cestors delighted  to  call  God's  acre ;  but  the  vestry 
of  Trinity  parish  have  stood  guard  sturdily  over  the 
dust  committed  to  their  care,  and  waved  off  the  dese- 
crating touch  of  speculation.  So  may  it  always  be. 

There  are  few  cities  richer  in  graves  than  our  own. 
Within  the  boundaries  of  New  York  rest  the  ashes  of 
a  long  line  of  distinguished  men.  In  the  vaults  of  old 
Trinity  and  St.  Paul's,  in  the  Marble  Cemetery,  in 
Trinity  Cemetery,  in  the  old  church-yards  beyond 
Central  Park  and  above  Harlem  River,  sleep  the  an- 
cestors of  the  city's  representative  families — men  emi- 
nent in  professional  and  business  life — a  line  too  long 
to  enumerate.  A  volume  could  be  written  (and  one 
was  planned  years  ago)  in  giving  the  brief  but  honor- 
able record  of  their  lives.  But  there  are  a  large  num- 
ber of  graves  fitted  to  become  shrines  of  patriotism, 
and  I  fear  sometimes  that  we  do  not  realize  all  that 
this  means,  or  we  would  do  them  still  more  honor. 
The  man  who  stood  next  to  Washington  in  making 
the  union  of  these  States  possible  sleeps  at  one  end  of 
the  Island  of  Manhattan,  and  at  the  other  rests  on  his 
laurels  the  soldier  whose  skill  and  patriotism  kept  the 
Union  indissoluble.  Alexander  Hamilton's  grave  is 
in  Trinity  Church-yard  ;  General  Grant's  tomb  is  at 
Riverside  Park;  and  between,  under  the  walls  of  an 
old  church  which  he  founded,  moulders  the  dust  of 
brave,  hot-headed  Petrus  Stuyvesant,  last  and  most 
gallant  of  the  old  Dutch  Governors  of  the  colony. 
The  city  which  can  boast  such  dust  in  its  soil  has  a 
right  to  plume  itself  on  its  past. 


138 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


Illustrious  men  lie  buried  in  every  corner  of  the 
church-yard  of  old  Trinity.  Francis  Lewis,  a  signer 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  a  typical  New 
York  merchant,  is  interred  there ;  and  his  son,  Gen. 
Morgan  Lewis,  a  soldier  of  1812,  sleeps  at  his  side. 
Albert  Gallatin,  the  distinguished  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury ;  Col.  Marinus  Willett,  of  Revolutionary 
memory  ;  William  Bradford,  colonial  printer  and  ed- 


TOMB    OF    ALBERT    GALLATIN 


itor  ;  Robert  Fulton,  who  launched  the  first  steamboat 
on  the  Hudson  ;  Captain  Lawrence,  who  lost  the  Ches- 
apeake, but  sent  his  last  battle-cry,  "  Don't  give  up  the 
ship!"  ringing  down  the  centuries;  Bishop  Hobart, 
grand  pioneer  of  the  cross ;  Gen.  Phil  Kearney,  the 
Murat  of  the  latest  struggle  for  liberty — these  are  but 
a  few  of  the  mighty  men  who  rest  in  peace  under  the 
shadow  of  Trinity's  spire.  And  the  women?  Ah, 
who  shall  fitly  hymn  their  praise  and  tell  the  story  of 
the  mingled  sweetness  and  strength  of  the  lives  they 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  139 

quietly  lived  and  that  yet  "  smell  sweet  and  blossom 
in  the  dust,"  and  of  the  other  lives  that  they  nurtured 
up  into  honor  and  renown,  content  to  shine  by  their 
reflected  light?  Of  all  the  inscriptions  on  stone  in  the 
old  burial-ground  at  the  head  of  Wall  Street,  the  most 
touching  to  me  is  that  which  measures  the  span  of  life 
of  Captain  Lawrence's  widow.  It  is  pathetic  in  its 
perfect  simplicity,  recording  only  the  name  and  the 
date  of  birth  and  burial.  The  young  wife  was  but 
twenty-five  years  of  age  when  her  husband  climbed 
up  into  immortal  glory  from  the  bloody  deck  of  the 
Chesapeake,  and  she  lived  for  more  than  half  a  century 
in  her  widowhood.  Fifty-two  years  afterwards,  in  the 
autumn  of  1865,  she  entered  into  rest,  but  not  until 
she  had  witnessed  a  conflict  that  shook  the  land  well- 
nigh  to  its  destruction,  and  had  seen  the  sword  finally 
sheathed  and  the  ploughshare  again  at  work. 

Other  heroes  lie  buried  elsewhere  on  our  city's  soil 
— General  Montgomery  under  the  chancel  of  St.  Paul's 
Church,  and  Admiral  Farragut  at  Woodlawn  Ceme- 
tery. Gouverneur  Morris,  diplomatist,  statesman,  and 
friend  of  Washington,  sleeps  in  his  family  vault  be- 
yond Harlem  River,  under  the  shadow  of  St.  Ann's 
Church,  and  for  years  the  body  of  President  Monroe 
rested  in  the  Marble  Cemetery  on  Second  Street,  un- 
til, in  1859,  Virginia  asked  for  the  guardianship  of  his 
ashes,  and  New  York  courteously  yielded  it.  There 
is  one  other  grave  that  should  not  be  forgotten.  A 
plain  white  slab,  which  stands  in  the  church-yard  of 
St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  bears  this  inscription:  "A  la 
me"moire  de  Pierre  Landais,  ancien  Contre-Amiral  au 
service  des  Etats-Unis,  Qui  Disparut  Juin,  1818,  age 
87  ans."  There  is  a  whole  romance,  and  a  bitter  one, 


140 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 


in  this  brief  record.  A  lieutenant  in  the  French  Navy, 
Landais  entered  the  service  of  the  United  States,  dis- 
tinguished himself,  and  was  given  command  of  a  frig- 
ate. In  the  battle  between  the  Serapis  and  the  Bon 
Homme  Richard,  poor  Landais,  who  executed  his  ma- 
noeuvres by  his  text-books,  won  the  name  of  coward, 
and  Paul  Jones,  in  his  disregard  of  all  rules,  became  a 
hero.  Cited  before  the  Naval  Committee  of  Congress, 
none  of  whom  understood  French  or  navigation,  Lan- 
dais was  heard  and  then  discharged  from  the  service 
in  disgrace.  Again  and  again  he  sought  another  hear- 
ing, but  in  vain,  and  for  forty  years  he  walked  the 


TOMB   OF   CAPTAIN   LAWRENCE 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  141 

streets  in  proud  and  solitary  poverty,  donning  his  old 
Continental  uniform  on  great  occasions,  and  at  last, 
forgotten  and  unnoticed,  as  his  epitaph  says,  he  "  dis- 
appeared" from  life. 

Although  Trinity  Cemetery  is  comparatively  mod- 
ern, it  is  the  burial-place  of  many  old  citizens  of  New 
York  who  were  eminent  in  their  various  walks  of  life, 
and  of  many  of  our  older  families.  Among  the  nota- 
ble graves  which  dot  that  beautiful  sleeping-ground  of 
the  dead  are  those  of  Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  a  hero  of  the 
wars  of  1812  and  1861  ;  Bishop  Wainwright,  William 
B.  Astor,  Samuel  B.  Ruggles,  Don  Alonzo  Cushman, 
John  H.  Contoit,  Baker,  the  artist;  Alexander  B.  Mc- 
Donald, Peter  and  Henry  Erben,  organ-builders  of  an- 
cient renown,  and  the  Rev.  Drs.  Higbee  and  Ogilby. 
The  list  of  old  families  embraces  the  names  of  Aymar, 
Ward,  Storm,  Cisco,  Palmer,  Lewis,  Mount,  Dash, 
Voorhis,  Guion,  Freeman,  Dresser,  Cotheal,  Innes, 
Egleston,  Gilbert,  and  Hoffman.  It  should  not  be 
forgotten,  also,  that  in  the  shadow  of  the  spire  of  old 
St.  Paul's  lie  buried  the  Sieur  de  Rochefontaine,  one 
of  Count  Rochambeau's  officers ;  George  Frederick 
Cooke,  the  actor,  whose  monument  was  erected  by  the 
elder  Kean ;  and  two  distinguished  sons  of  Ireland- 
Thomas  Addis  Emmet  and  Dr.  Macneven. 

In  noticing  the  burial-plots  in  this  city  that  have 
been  obliterated  within  my  memory — and  I  can  recall 
more  than  a  score  between  the  rifled  vaults  of  the  old 
Dutch  Church  on  Nassau  Street  and  Harlem  River — 
it  seems  to  me  that  none  pay  more  regard  to  the  dust 
of  the  dead  than  do  the  Jews.  There  is  no  synagogue 
to  overshadow  the  old  cemetery  on  New  Bowery,  yet 
the  dead  who  were  inearthed  there  nearly  two  centu- 


142 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK 


ries  ago  remain  undisturbed,  and  on  the  old  tomb- 
stones the  graven  hands  out-stretched  in  benediction 
still  remain  distinct  to  the  passer-by,  to  mark  the  rest- 
ing-place of  one 
belonging  to  the 
house  and  lineage 
of  Aaron.  Anoth- 
er of  these  burial- 
places  is  on  Elev- 
enth Street,  near 
Sixth  Avenue,  so 
hidden  by  a  high 
brick  wall  that  one 
can  easily  pass  it 
by  without  no- 
tice. It  is  part  of 
a  large  cemetery 
that  in  the  ear- 
ly years  of  the 
present  century 
stretched  along 
the  upper  bank 
of  Minetta  Brook, 
and  was  the  prop- 
erty of  the  con- 
gregation Shear- 
ith  Israel, to  whom 
also  the  burial- 
plot  on  the  New 

GRAVE   OF    GEORGE   FREDERICK    COOKE  BoWCry      belongs. 

During  the  yel- 
low-fever visitations  graves  multiplied  here,  and  when  it 
became  necessary  to  lay  out  Eleventh  Street  a  new  plot 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK  143 

was  purchased  on  West  Twenty -first  Street,  near  Sixth 
Avenue,  and  all  the  bodies  were  removed  from  the 
lower  to  the  upper  cemetery,  except  the  few  that  still 
slumber  in  the  little  summer-garden  by  the  way-side. 
Long  since  the  upper  cemetery,  which  is  still  pre- 
served intact,  and  is  now  hidden  by  a  high  brick  wall 
on  Twenty- first  Street,  became  "  old,"  though  there 
are  people  yet  living  who  remember  it  as  part  of  a 
pleasant  vista  of  field  and  wood,  and  not  far  from  a 
little  brook  that  babbled  its  way  down  to  the  Hudson 
at  Twenty-sixth  Street. 

An  old  New  Yorker  and  valued  correspondent,  Mr. 
George  A.  Halsey,  in  a  letter  refers  to  the  burking 
excitement  which  prevailed  in  this  city  in  1829-30, 
occasioned  by  alleged  mysterious  disappearances  of 
many  persons  during  that  period,  and  intensified  by 
the  horror  of  the  Burke  kidnappings,  which  had  just 
electrified  Edinburgh  and  the  United  Kingdom.  In 
former  years  there  had  been  a  terrible  riot,  arising 
from  a  rumor  that  the  doctors,  not  content  with  ex- 
huming bodies  from  the  potter's  field  and  the  negroes' 
burial-ground,  then  considered  lawful  prey,  had  been 
rifling  graves  in  city  cemeteries.  But  in  this  case  the 
work  of  the  grave  was  anticipated.  Mr.  Halsey  says : 

"  I  recollect  one  of  the  stories  then  prevalent,  and 
universally  believed,  that  missing  children  had  been 
found  in  the  haunts  of  the  burkers  in  our  city  fastened 
in  a  sitting  position  in  a  chair  with  their  feet  immersed 
in  warm  water,  an  important  artery  cut,  and  slowly 
bleeding  to  .,death.  All  that  winter  the  community 
was  in  a  state  bordering  on  panic ;  in  the  evening  la- 
dies and  children  never  left  their  homes  alone  unless 
accompanied  by  one  or  more  able-bodied  male  attend- 


144  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

ants,  though  but  going  a  block  or  less  away  to  church 
or  to  a  neighbor's,  and  their  protectors  were  always 
provided  with  stout  bludgeons  or  other  means  of  de- 
fence. I  recollect  going  out  in  the  evening  during 
that  exciting  period  with  my  father  occasionally  to 
church  on  the  next  corner,  and  his  carrying  a  stout 
club  of  hickory  cord-wood  at  such  times,  taken  from 
the  convenient  pile  in  our  cellar  (there  was  no  coal 
used  in  those  days),  and  when  the  congregation  filed 
out  into  the  street  at  the  conclusion  of  the  services 
I  observed  others  of  the  male  attendants  similarly 
equipped.  I  recollect  that  the  colored  population 
were  even  more  excited,  none  of  them  then  being  so 
bold  as  to  leave  home  after  dusk.  The  other  day  I 
asked  a  venerable  old  Ethiopian,  whom  I  have  known 
from  boyhood,  when  his  aunt  was  a  domestic  in  my 
parents'  house  in  Liberty  Street,  whether  he  recollect- 
ed the  'burking'  affair;  he  answered,  almost  to  the 
verge,  apparently,  of  trembling,  that  he  did  fully  re- 
member, and  that  the  reminiscence  was  painful." 

He  adds: 

"  This  reminds  me  that  our  old  colored  people,  those 
who  first  beheld  the  light  of  day  in  the  closing  years 
of  the  last  century,  have  nearly  all  gone  to  their  final 
resting-place ;  I  know  of  but  one  or  two  of  them  left. 
A  few  weeks  ago  an  old  '  uncle '  of  that  race,  well  up 
in  the  nineties,  respected  by  all  who  knew  him,  and  a 
resident  of  the  city  from  his  birth,  died  in  Cedar  Street, 
around  the  corner  from  my  office,  and  an  old  '  aunty/ 
who  had  lived  here  from  birth,  died  only  last  week 
near  by  in  Nassau  Street,  equally  respected  and  but  a 
year  or  two  younger.  I  observe  also  now  and  then  in 
this  vicinity  one  venerable  '  aunty '  tottering  along 


A    TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK  145 

through  her  old  haunts,  who  has  nearly  approached 
the  century  of  her  existence.  I  receive  visits  quarter- 
yearly  or  oftener  from  an  aged  '  uncle '  who  resides  in 
our  suburbs,  and  was  a  slave  of  my  great-grandfather 
and  afterwards  of  my  grandfather.  He  was  manumit- 
ted under  the  State  law  in  1827,  and  is  now  in  his 
ninety-ninth  year;  sight,  memory,  and  hearing  seem- 
ingly unimpaired,  he  has  a  walk  and  general  vigor 
equal  to  most  men  of  sixty !  I  know  of  none  of  our 
race  now  living  who  have  attained  so  great  an  age  by 
a  decade  of  years,  and  think  their  longevity  must  be 
the  greater  of  the  two." 

The  question  of  longevity  is  a  difficult  one  to  settle 
in  the  absence  of  reliable  data  as  to  the  colored  race, 
but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  average  is  in  favor 
of  the  white  people.  It  is  not  many  days  since  a  hale 
old  gentleman  of  ninety -four,  representative  of  one 
of  our  oldest  Knickerbocker  families,  came  from  his 
home,  four  miles  beyond  the  Post-office,  to  have  a  talk 
with  Felix  Oldboy,  and  I  am  in  search  of  another  non- 
agenarian on  the  west  side  who  has  been  reported 
to  me  as  having  a  much  livelier  interest  in  the  proper 
training  of  his  whiskers  and  his  general  appearance 
than  in  any  antiquities,  local  or  otherwise.  I  have 
known  many  of  the  old  slaves  in  my  boyhood,  but  do 
not  know  of  any  burial  of  blacks  in  our  cemeteries,  or 
of  any  negro  graves  in  our  city  limits.  In  many  parts 
of  New  Jersey,  and  out  on  Long  Island,  there  are  old 
"  slave  "  burying-grounds — for  the  most  part  pictures 
of  desolation  and  neglect — but  the  old  negro  burying- 
grounds  set  apart  by  the  city  seem  to  have  been  largely 
succeeded  by  the  potter's  field.  In  a  crowded,  growing 
city  the  living  push  aside  the  dead,  sometimes  almost 


146  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

rudely,  and  therefore  I  am  always  glad  to  see  a  city 
graveyard  and  to  acknowledge  its  humanizing  effect. 

I  have  been  led  into  this  chapter  on  our  city's  dead 
because  only  yesterday  I  heard  a  dispute  between  offi- 
cials and  members  of  an  old  city  church  in  reference 
to  a  proposition  to  build  houses  upon  the  burial-plot 
at  the  side  of  the  edifice.  The  plot  is  a  small  one,  cov- 
ering only  three  or  four  building-lots,  but  it  is  all  fur- 
rowed with  graves  and  gray  with  granite  headstones, 
and  the  inscriptions  on  the  stones  tell  the  history  of 
the  first  half-century  of  a  pioneer  church.  Some  one 
asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the  proposition,  and  I 
said:  "  Restore  God's-acre;  make  it  beautiful  with 
green  turf,  fragrant  shrubs,  and  sweet  flowers ;  invite 
the  sunshine  to  touch  its  graves  and  the  birds  of  the 
air  to  come  and  sing  among  its  trees,  and  then  let  it 
preach  its  own  sermon.  No  orator  in  the  pulpit  will 
be  so  eloquent  as  that  little  church-yard.  It  will  tell 
to  all  who  pass  by  that  the  sleepers  fought  a  good  fight 
and  died  in  the  faith." 

A  little  uncle  of  mine,  who  was  only  five  years  of 
age  when  God  called  him,  sleeps  somewhere  in  the 
church-yard  of  old  Trinity.  The  first-born  of  the  flock, 
his  little  feet  crossed  over  Jordan  all  alone,  and  went 
pattering  up  the  hills  on  the  other  side  and  into  the 
Promised  Land,  while  his  father  and  mother  tarried 
behind  in  tears  in  the  wilderness.  So  often  I  think  of 
him  as  I  pass  by,  and  wonder  what  he  looked  like  on 
earth,  and  how  he  will  look  by-and-by.  Perhaps  I  am 
the  only  one  now,  in  all  the  world  of  life,  who  remem- 
bers. In  the  same  way,  to  all  of  us,  the  rows  of  graves, 
hemmed  in  by  busy  haunts  of  life,  are  so  many  silent 
but  effective  preachers. 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  147 


CHAPTER    XIII 

ECHOES  OF  SWEET  SINGERS — OLD  THEATRES  ON  BROADWAY — AN  AC- 
CIDENTAL THOROUGHFARE  —  EVOLUTION  OF  UNION  SQUARE — A 
STREET  THAT  WAS  NOT  OPENED — HISTORY  OF  A  CHURCH  BELL 

AN  unknown  correspondent  writes  gently  to  chide 
Mr.  Oldboy  for  not  mentioning  "  Palmo's  Opera- 
house,  which  preceded  Burton's  in  Chambers  Street, 
and  Thompson's  famous  restaurant,  which  was  quite 
as  popular  as  Taylor's,"  and  situated  near  it.  He 
adds:  "When  Mr.  O.  gets  above  Howard  Street,  he 
forgets  to  mention  the  original  Olympic  Theatre 
(Mitchell's),  which  was  a  very  popular  little  box ;  also 
Wood's  Minstrels,  which,  though  later,  were  quite  as 
much  liked  as  Christy's.  He  also  fails  to  mention 
Wallack's  Theatre,  near  Broome  Street,  where  they 
had  a  splendid  company." 

Peccaviy  especially  in  forgetting  Thompson's,  where 
many  a  time  and  oft  the  inner  boy  and  man  was 
sweetly  refreshed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not  re- 
call Palmo's  Opera-house,  but  I  have  the  liveliest  kind 
of  remembrance  of  Burton's  Theatre,  and  "  Aminidab 
Sleek  "  is  as  vivid  a  portraiture  in  memory  as  it  was 
in  life  the  first  time  that  I  beheld  it.  Fancy  going 
down  to  Chambers  Street  to  meet  the  beauty  and 
fashion  of  the  metropolis  at  its  most  select  theatre ; 
and  yet  it  was  only  yesterday,  or  not  longer  ago  than 
the  day  before  !  As  to  opera,  I  first  fell  in  love  with  it 


148  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

at  Castle  Garden,  when  a  youth,  and  certainly  I  never 
got  as  much  delight  out  of  a  dollar  as  came  to  me 
from  that  amount  of  money  expended  in  the  purchase 
of  a  ticket  which  admitted  me  to  both  a  matine"e  and 
evening  performance.  The  artists  were  Alboni,  Son- 
tag,  etc.,  and  the  opera  for  the  evening  was  "  Lucrezia 
Borgia/'  Since  then  I  have  never  entered  Castle  Gar- 
den without  recalling  the  wonderful  effect  of  "  II  se- 
greto "  as  sung  by  Alboni,  which  roused  the  vast 
audience  that  filled  the  great  floor  and  galleries  to 
wild  enthusiasm.  Women  as  well  as  men  rose  to 
their  feet,  and  the  encores  were  like  an  echo  of  Niag- 
ara. Somehow  I  cannot  get  as  much  value  out  of  §5 
invested  to-day  in  opera,  and  I  really  do  not  think  the 
fault  is  wholly  my  own. 

It  is  over  sixty  years  since  the  Garcia  troupe  gave 
New  York  its  first  taste  of  Italian  opera.  They  made 
their  appearance  at  the  Park  Theatre  in  "  II  Barbiere 
di  Seviglia,"  and  carried  the  town  by  storm.  No  won- 
der, for  Mile.  Garcia,  afterwards  known  the  world  over 
as  the  great  Malibran,  made  her  debut  here  at  the 
time,  though  but  seventeen  years  of  age.  New  York 
recognized  her  genius,  and  laid  its  tribute  of  praise 
at  her  feet,  crowding  the  old  Park  Theatre  to  listen 
delightedly  to  the  same  opera  for  thirty  successive 
nights.  The  queer  part  of  Malibran's  experience  here 
was  her  subsequent  appearance  at  the  Bowery  Theatre 
in  English  opera.  One  can  hardly  fancy  the  opera 
flourishing  at  the  new  theatre  opened  in  1826  on  the 
site  of  the  old  Bull's  Head,  and  it  did  not  succeed. 
The  queen  of  song  drew  large  audiences,  and  was  paid 
at  the  rate  of  $600  a  night,  but  after  three  weeks  the 
attempt  was  abandoned,  and  the  Bowery  was  turned 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  151 

over  to  the  legitimate  drama.  It  was  after  this  failure 
that  Palmo  opened  his  tasteful  little  opera-house  with  a 
choice  troupe  of  artists,  and  for  a  time  achieved  the  suc- 
cess that  he  deserved.  But  at  last  he  was  compelled  to 
abandon  the  enterprise.  The  Astor  Place  Opera-house 
was  an  operatic  failure  from  the  time  of  its  completion 
in  1846,  and  four  years  later  had  been  converted  into 
a  menagerie  which  the  boys  delighted  to  visit,  and 
into  which  I  stole  surreptitiously  to  save  my  dignity 
as  a  college  student.  The  Academy  of  Music  opened 
in  1855  with  a  blare  of  trumpets,  and  on  that  site  have 
since  been  witnessed  an  infinite  variety  of  entertain- 
ments and  performances,  many  of  which  were  not 
contemplated  in  the  original  projection  of  the  institu- 
tion. 

My  correspondent  halts  me  again  at  Canal  Street, 
and  as  we  stand  here  I  recall  having  read  that  Trinity 
Parish  once  offered  to  the  congregation  of  another 
creed — Lutheran,  I  believe — a  plot  of  several  acres  just 
where  we  stand,  and  that  it  was  refused  by  the  church 
authorities  on  the  ground  that  they  did  not  think  it 
worth  fencing  in.  It  was  all  low,  swampy  ground  here- 
abouts at  the  opening  of  the  present  century,  tenanted 
by  frogs  and  water -snakes,  and  covered  by  brambles. 
The  boys  and  girls  skated  on  the  brook  that  flowed 
from  the  Collect  Pond  to  the  North  River,  eighty  years 
ago,  and  went  across  it  into  the  marshes  to  gather  wild- 
flowers  and  berries.  The  people  who  were  gray-head- 
ed when  I  was  a  boy  have  told  me  many  an  exciting 
adventure  they  had  in  the  marshes  when  the  century 
was  young,  and  they  usually  wound  up  with  a  reflec- 
tion that  I  caught  myself  making  the  other  day — that 
if  they  had  only  known  how  rapidly  the  city  was  to 


152 


A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 


grow,  they  could  have  made  themselves  millionaires 
by  investing  a  "mere  song"  in  real  estate. 

There  was  one  building  on  Broadway,  below  Canal 
Street,  which  I  well  remember,  and  which  I  should 
not  have  forgotten  to  mention  —  Masonic  Hall,  cov- 
ering the  site  of  the  stores  now  known  as  314  and  316 

Broadway.  The 
building  was  erected 
in  1826  by  the  Ma- 
sonic fraternity,  and 
was,  for  its  time,  an 
imposing  affair.  The 
saloon  on  the  second 
floor,  100  feet  long, 
50  feet  wide,  and  25 
feet  in  height,  finish- 
ed in  the  richest  style 
of  Gothic  architec- 
ture, and  intended  to 
imitate  the  Chapel 
of  Henry  VIII.  in 
London,  was  consid- 
MASONIC  HALL  ered  the  most  ele- 

gant  apartment  of 

the  kind  in  the  United  States.  It  was  used  for  public 
meetings,  concerts,  and  balls,  and  as  such  I  remember 
it.  The  building  was  then  known  as  Gothic  Hall,  hav- 
ing passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Masonic  fraternity, 
in  consequence  of  the  serious  and  prolonged  troubles 
growing  out  of  the  "Morgan"  excitement.  Gothic 
Hall  stood  between  Pearl  and  Duane  streets,  and 
towered  high  above  the  small  frame  buildings  on 
either  side.  These  streets  did  not  always  bear  their 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  153 

present  names.  Duane  Street  was  formerly  known  as 
Barley  Street,  because  of  a  famous  brewery  situated 
just  west  of  Broadway,  and  Pearl  Street  was  known 
as  Magazine  Street,  because  it  led  up  from  the  maga- 
zine on  an  island  in  the  Collect  Pond.  Worth  Street 
was  known  as  Anthony  Street  a  generation  ago,  and 
its  first  name,  Catharine  Street,  is  still  perpetuated  in 
Catharine  Lane.  Franklin  Street  was  formerly  known 
as  Sugarloaf  Street.  Even  Broadway  at  this  point 
has  not  always  been  thus  designated.  The  lower  por- 
tion of  our  great  thoroughfare  has  been  known  from 
time  immemorial  as  "The  Broadway"  and  "  Broadway 
Street,"  but  from  the  City  Hall  Park  to  Astor  Place  it 
was  called  "  St.  George"  or  "  Great  George"  Street 
up  to  the  close  of  the  last  century,  and  still  later  it 
was  commonly  spoken  of  as  the  "  Middle  Road." 

The  original  Olympic  Theatre  was  at  442  Broad- 
way, and  later  was  known  as  the  old  Circus.  It  stood 
next  door  to  Tattersall's.  The  later  Olympic  Theatre, 
which  was  first  known  as  Laura  Keene's,  was  situated 
between  Houston  and  Bleecker  streets.  Wallack's 
Theatre,  in  1853,  was  located  at  48$  Broadway.  It 
had  been  known  previously  as  Brougham's  Lyceum. 
The  Winter  Garden  Theatre  succeeded  Tripler  Hall 
at  677  Broadway,  and  for  a  good  while  was  a  favorite 
place  of  amusement.  A  number  of  hotels,  in  addition 
to  the  Metropolitan  and  St.  Nicholas,  congregated  in 
this  neighborhood.  On  the  east  side  were  the  Ameri- 
can, the  Union  Hotel,  the  Collamore,  and  the  Carroll 
House;  and  on  the  west  side  the  new  City  Hotel,  be- 
tween Canal  and  Howard  streets,  the  Prescott  House, 
New  York  Hotel,  and  Astor  Place  Hotel.  These 
were  the  hotels  that  marked  the  transition  period  be- 


154  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

tween  the  down -town  houses,  which  sought  still  to 
make  the  City  Hall  Park  the  hotel  centre,  and  the 
erection  of  vast  marble  caravansaries  beyond  the  Bow- 
ery cross-roads.  For  it  is  not  much  more  than  the 
flight  of  a  generation  since  Franconi  erected  his  Hip- 
podrome tents  upon  the  vacant  lots  in  the  rear  of 
what  is  now  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  and  we  boys 
went  "out  of  town,"  as  we  thought  it  then,  to  see  his 
imported  curiosities.  And  no  hotel-keeper  of  the  day 
had  summoned  up  sufficient  courage  to  charge  more 
than  one  dollar  and  a  half  for  a  day's  board  and  lodg- 
ing. One  dollar  a  day  had  been  the  tariff  at  the 
Astor  House,  and  an  advance  of  50  per  cent,  was  all 
that  conscience  would  allow.  The  old-fashioned  hos- 
tlery  at  Broadway  and  Twenty -second  Street,  with 
broad  verandas,  shaded  by  great  oaks  and  elms,  which 
was  the  stopping- place  of  all  the  fast  trotters  of  the 
day,  would  have  blushed  crimson  over  its  clean  white 
front  had  it  ventured  to  present  such  a  bill  as  the 
modern  Boniface  presents  with  a  smile. 

A  man  whom  I  often  heard  spoken  of  when  a  boy 
was  Stephen  B.  Munn,  a  large  property -holder  in  the 
vicinity  of  Broadway,  Grand,  and  Broome  streets, 
whose  office  was  at  the  corner  of  Grand  Street,  and 
who  had  built,  on  Broadway  above  Broome,  the  two 
best  houses  standing  in  the  neighborhood,  which  were 
very  superior  buildings  for  the  times.  In  one  of  these 
he  lived  for  a  number  of  years,  and  he  had  for  neigh- 
bors many  of  the  sons  of  old  settlers.  On  the  block 
above  were  the  houses  of  Dr.  Livingston,  and  of  Dr. 
Henry  Mott,  father  of  Dr.  Valentine  Mott.  Robert 
Halliday  and  a  branch  of  the  Beekman  family  were 
also  neighbors,  and  above  Prince  Street  stood  a  hand- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  155 

some  residence  which  had  been  erected  by  John  Jacob 
Astor,  and  was  occupied  by  his  son-in-law,  Walter 
Langdon.  Opposite,  in  a  modest  brick  house,  lived 
at  one  time  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  the  novelist.  I 
remember  his  personal  appearance,  for  in  literature  he 
was  one  of  my  chief  heroes ;  the  other  was  Washing- 
ton Irving.  Personally  there  was  a  marked  contrast 
between  the  two,  Mr.  Cooper  being  as  robust  and  ath- 
letic as  Mr.  Irving  appeared  delicate  and  of  artistic 
fibre,  but  each  somehow  came  up  to  my  boyish  ideal. 
They  were  devout  Episcopalians,  and  always  attended 
the  diocesan  conventions  as  delegates,  and  it  was  my 
delight  to  sit  up  in  the  gallery  and  watch  their  move- 
ments, and  wonder  how  it  must  seem  to  be  able  to  en- 
tertain the  world  with  Rip  Van  Winkle,  and  Harvey 
Birch,  the  spy. 

There  was  not  much  of  Broadway  above  Union 
Square  at  that  time.  In  fact,  this  great  highway,  des- 
tined to  be  trodden,  as  Horatio  Seymour  once  told 
me,  by  more  people  than  ever  migrated  through  any 
other  avenue  of  travel  on  the  globe,  was  in  reality  an 
accident.  Originally  it  was  supposed  that  the  city's 
main  artery  of  travel  would  turn  to  the  east  of  the 
commons  and  follow  the  old  Boston  Road.  In  point 
of  fact,  provision  was  made  to  that  end.  Park  Row 
and  Chatham  Street,  in  connection  with  the  lower 
part  of  Broadway  and  the  Bowery,  formed  the  original 
highway  leading  from  the  city  into  the  interior,  long 
known  as  the  High  Road  to  Boston.  Business  for  a 
long  time  insisted  upon  turning  to  the  east  of*  Broad- 
way at  the  City  Hall  Park,  and  owners  of  property 
were  determined  to  keep  the  west  side  sacred  to  resi- 
dences. But  it  was  not  so  to  be.  Pearl  Street  ceased 


I$6  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

to  absorb  the  dry-goods  trade  half  a  century  ago,  and 
when  A.  T.  Stewart  spread  his  dry -goods  nets  on  the 
"  shilling  side  "  of  Broadway,  that  settled  it. 

But  no  one  dreamed,  a  generation  ago,  that  Union 
Square  would  be  invaded  by  traffic,  either  in  this  cen- 
tury or  in  the  next.  It  was  a  veritable  paradise  of  ex- 
clusives.  Its  solid  brown-stone  and  brick  mansions 
frowned  forbiddingly  upon  the  frowzy  little  park  in 
front,  which  they  had  found  an  unfenced  triangle  of 
waste  land  at  the  junction  of  Bowery  Lane  and  the  Mid- 
dle or  Bloomingdale  Road,  but  which  they  had  fenced 
in  and  planted  with  trees  for  their  exclusive  use.  Here 
dwelt  a  solid  race  of  men,  and  they  meant  to  remain 
so.  A  single  church  stood  on  the  west  side,  the 
Church  of  the  Puritans,  of  which  Dr.  Cheever  was 
pastor.  It  was  a  headquarters  of  abolitionism,  and 
more  than  once  I  stole  in  there  at  night,  when  a  col- 
lege student,  prepared  to  hear  something  "perfectly 
awful,"  which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  I  did  not  hear! 
The  late  Frederic  de  Peyster  told  me  that  when  he 
came  to  live  in  the  house  in  which  he  died,  in  Univer- 
sity Place,  near  Thirteenth  Street,  there  was  but  one 
house  which  obstructed  his  view  of  the  East  River, 
and  none  that  rose  between  him  and  the  Hudson. 
That  was  only  fifty  years  ago,  and  yet  within  that 
time  a  city  of  quiet  homes  rose  about  him  and  gave 
place  to  a  dusty,  noisy  city  of  business.  At  the  time 
of  his  death  his  was  the  only  house  in  the  block  that 
had  not  been  converted  to  business  purposes,  and 
from  the  outside  it  appeared  lonesome  enough. 

The  country-seats  which  had  adorned  "  Sandy  Hill, 
at  the  upper  end  of  Broadway,"  and  the  "  Minetta 
water  "  beyond,  rapidly  disappeared  before  the  level- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  157 

ling  hand  of  improvement,  as  soon  as  Union  Square 
became  fashionable.  The  Elliot  estate  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Captain  Robert  R.  Randall,  who  in  turn 
deeded  it  to  the  Sailors'  Snug  Harbor.  It  is  on  a 
portion  of  this  land  that  Stewart  built  his  up -town 
store.  Adjoining  was  the  farm  of  stout  old  Hendrick 
Brevoort,  through  whose  homestead,  between  Broad- 
way and  the  Bowery,  the  new  Eleventh  Street  was 
planned  to  run.  When  the  opening  of  this  street  be- 
came desirable,  Mr.  Brevoort  resisted  with  so  much  of 
ancient  Dutch  stubbornness  that  the  improvement 
was  abandoned.  An  ordinance  for  the  removal  of  the 
house  was  passed  as  late  as  1849,  but  the  venerable 
occupant  refused  to  remove,  and  it  was  rescinded. 
In  his  palmy  days,  Mr.  Tweed,  the  head  of  the  De- 
partment of  Public  Works,  was  represented  as  sitting 
at  his  desk  with  a  map  of  the  city's  most  desirable 
street  openings  spread  before  him.  In  settling  dis- 
putes as  to  candidates  and  offices,  it  was  said  that  this 
renowned  statesman  would  compromise  matters  beau- 
tifully by  means  of  his  map.  As  a  sop  to  disappointed 
ambition  he  would  remark  :  "  No,  I  cannot  let  you  go 
to  Albany  this  winter,  but  here  is  something  which  is 
almost  as  good.  You  can  have  this  street  opening 
and  make  a  good  thing  out  of  it."  At  one  time 
Tweed  determined  to  cut  Eleventh  Street  through 
from  Broadway  to  Fourth  Avenue,  or  make  Grace 
Church  pay  handsomely.  The  vestry  thereupon  met 
and  challenged  Tweed  to  go  ahead.  He  never  did. 
Trinity  Parish,  by  the  way,  presented  a  silent  ar- 
gument against  the  proposition  to  cut  Pine  Street 
through  the  old  church-yard.  It  built  a  monument  to 
the  unknown  dead  of  the  Continental  Army  who  per- 


158  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 

ished  in  British  prison  pens  in  this  city.  The  pedestal 
is  all  right,  but  the  public  have  waited  a  long  while  for 
the  "  old  Continental"  in  white  marble,  who  was  to 
stand  under  the  brown-stone  canopy  and  complete  the 
picture. 

The  old  farm-house  of  Henry  Spingler — built  orig- 
inally by  Elias  Brevoort  —  stood  within  the  limits  of 
the  present  Union  Square,  and  the  twenty -two  acres 
of  the  estate  lay  west  of  the  Bowery  Road.  The  lat- 
ter road,  then  known  as  Bowery  Lane,  curved  some- 
what in  passing  the  Square,  and  at  Sixteenth  Street 
turned  and  pursued  a  straight  course  to  Bloomingdale. 
In  order  to  join  this  course,  the  direction  of  Broadway 
was  changed  at  Tenth  Street,  and  a  junction  effected 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Square.  One  of  the  persons 
most  actively  engaged  in  the  improvements  connected 
with  Union  Square  and  its  neighborhood  was  the  late 
Samuel  B.  Ruggles,  a  resident  and  large  property- 
holder  in  the  vicinity.  It  was  from  this  court- end  of 
the  city  that  Grace  Church  drew  its  large  and  wealthy 
congregation.  For  forty  years  that  beautiful  edifice 
has  been  the  pride  of  all  who  loved  Broadway,  for  it 
crowned  magnificently  its  upper  end,  and  stood  senti- 
nel above  its  Sunday  stillness  at  a  time  when  hand- 
some church  buildings  were  the  exceptions  to  the  rule. 
Its  roll  of  membership  was  at  one  time,  and  no  distant 
one,  a  roll  of  the  most  select  society  of  which  New 
York  could  boast.  Its  rector,  Dr.  Taylor,  was  not 
much  of  a  pulpit  orator,  but  he  was  a  great  social 
power,  and  its  sexton,  the  immensely  impressive  Brown, 
was  society's  chief  oracle.  One  by  one  the  neighbor- 
ing churches  have  migrated,  and  now  Grace  Church 
stands  her  ground  almost  alone,  and  yet  with  a  full 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  159 

congregation.     The  sons  of  the  fathers  follow  in  the 
path  of  their  sires,  and  it  is  a  good  sign  that  it  is  so. 

To  me,  as  the  city  grows  larger,  busier,  and  more 
cosmopolitan,  one  of  the  things  I  most  miss  is  the 
sound  of  the  old  familiar  church  bell.  The  city  was 
drenched  with  silence  on  Sundays  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  there  was  no  sound  to  break  the  stillness  except 
the  clangor  of  the  bells.  At  nine  and  at  two  they 
summoned  us  to  Sunday-school ;  at  half-past  ten  and 
at  three  they  called  the  people  to  church.  I  suppose 
they  ring  as  usual  now,  but  the  rumble  of  street-cars, 
the  continual  rush  of  other  vehicles,  the  rattle  and 
roar  of  the  elevated  lines,  and  all  the  modern  combina- 
tion of  noises  comes  between  their  music  and  my  ear, 
and  sometimes  the  Sunday  of  my  boyhood  seems  alto- 
gether lost.  And  this  reminds  me  that  New  York,  as 
well  as  Philadelphia,  is  owner  of  an  historic  bell.  It 
was  cast  in  Amsterdam  in  1731,  and  it  is  said  that 
many  citizens  cast  in  quantities  of  silver  coin  at  the 
fusing  of  the  metals.  The  bell  was  a  legacy  of  Col. 
Abraham  de  Peyster,  who  died  while  the  Middle 
Dutch  Church,  on  Nassau  Street,  was  building,  and  di- 
rected in  his  will  that  the  bell  should  be  procured  from 
Holland  at  his  expense.  When  the  city  was  captured 
by  the  British,  and  the  church  was  turned  into  a  riding- 
school  for  the  dragoons  (Johnny  Battin  has  told  me 
often  how  he  used  to  practise  his  troop  there),  the  bell 
was  taken  down  by  the  De  Peyster  family  and  secreted 
until  shortly  after  the  evacuation  of  the  city,  when  it 
was  restored  to  its  original  position.  It  never  rang  in 
honor  of  British  oppression,  but  was  patriotic  to  the 
core.  When  the  church  was  sold  to  the  Government 
for  a  post-office,  the  bell  was  removed  to  the  church 


THE   MIDDLE    DUTCH   CHURCH 


on  Ninth  Street,  near  Broadway,  and  thirty  years  ago, 
when  the  building  changed  hands,  it  found  another 
resting-place  in  the  church  on  Lafayette  Place.  Now 
it  has  made  some  other  migration.  But,  of  right,  it 
should  pass  to  a  place  of  honor  in  the  rooms  of  the 
Historical  Society.  A  bell  with  such  ancestry  and 
history  (and  he  who  reads  ancient  Dutch  may  read  its 
story  in  the  inscription)  deserves  to  be  tenderly  cher- 
ished by  a  city  that  has  preserved  too  few  of  the  me- 
mentos of  its  eventful  story. 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  l6l 


' 


CHAPTER    XIV 

SUMMER  BREEZES  AT  THE  BATTERY — A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LAST  CENTURY 
— KNICKERBOCKERS  AND  THEIR  HOMES — AN  OLD-TIME  STROLL  UP 
BROADWAY 

THE  coolest  spot  in  New  York  in  the  dog-days  is  the 
Battery  Park.  From  some  point  in  the  compass  a 
breeze  is  always  blowing  among  its  elms,  and  the  elec- 
tric lights  bathe  it  in  perpetual  moonshine.  Even  on 
the  most  quiet  of  nights  the  swell  of  passing  steamers 
makes  a  ripple  of  tinkling  waters  against  its  granite 
front,  and  there  is  no  lack  of  pleasant  companionship 
to  those  who  recall  the  feet  that  in  old  times  pressed 
its  gravelled  walks.  Men  whose  hair  is  beginning  to 
grow  white  recall  the  day  when  they  looked  up  with 
pride,  not  unmingled  with  awe,  to  the  old  Knicker- 
bockers who  loved  to  walk  here  in  the  cool  of  the 
afternoon,  and  who  showed  the  gentleness  of  their 
blood  by  always  having  a  kindly  word  and  the  bene- 
diction of  a  touch  of  the  hand  upon  the  head  for  us 
who  were  children  then.  "  '  Who  were  the  Knicker- 
bockers,'you  ask,  Mrs.  Fribble?  No  one,  my  dear 
madam,  in  whom  you  have  the  slightest  interest." 

Let  us  pass  on. 

I  remember  a  dear  old  lady  who  loved  to  talk  about 
this  park,  and  tell  of  the  people  she  had  met  here  and 
the  scenes  she  had  witnessed ;  and  of  these,  one  man 
and  one  morning's  adventure  stood  out  most  promi- 


l62  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

nent.  A  little  thing  in  white,  her  nurse  had  brought 
her  to  the  park  to  witness  a  civic  anniversary,  and  the 
crowd  prevented  her  from  obtaining  a  good  view  of 
the  pageant.  As,  with  a  child's  impatience,  she  tried 
to  press  through  the  throng,  a  tall  and  handsome  el- 
derly gentleman,  clad  in  a  suit  of  black  velvet  and  with 
a  dress  sword  at  his  side,  stooped  down  to  her,  inquired 
pleasantly  about  her  trouble,  and  then  lifted  her  upon 
his  shoulder  and  held  her  there  until  the  procession 
had  passed.  Delighted  with  what  she  saw,  the  child 
thought  little  about  the  gentleman  who  had  brushed 
away  her  trouble,  but  thanked  him  when  he  released 
her  with  a  kiss  and  set  her  down  upon  the  ground. 
As  he  moved  away,  the  nurse,  in  an  awe-struck  voice, 
asked  the  child  if  she  knew  whose  arms  had  held  her, 
and  then  told  her  that  it  was  President  Washington. 
The  little  eyes  watched  him  as  he  walked  quietly  away, 
and  never  forgot  his  stately  appearance.  I  think  that 
dear  old  Mrs.  Atterbury  was  more  proud  of  having 
been  the  heroine  of  this  incident  than  of  all  the  social 
honors  that  afterwards  fell  to  her  lot. 

At  the  Battery  the  ancient  Dutch  progenitors  of 
the  city  of  New  Amsterdam  laid  the  first  foundations 
of  a  metropolis  for  the  New  World.  But  the  pioneers 
from  Holland  were  not  unanimously  of  the  opinion 
that  it  was  wise  to  build  their  city  at  this  point. 
A  large  number  of  them  thought  it  would  be  more 
prudent  to  pitch  their  tents  at  Spuyten  Duyvil ;  there 
they  had  found  lovely  meadow  lands  with  running 
water,  affording  an  excellent  opportunity  to  dig  and 
equip  canals,  and  the  sight  was  so  shut  in  by  adjacent 
hills  as  to  be  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  foreign  advent- 
urers who  might  find  entrance  in  the  harbor  below. 


THE   FORT   AT   THE   BATTERY. 


It  was  not  the  Indians  whom  the  Dutch  feared,  but 
the  English.  These  latter  rapacious  adventurers  were 
then  pushing  their  expeditions  in  all  directions,  and 
while  it  was  feared  that  they  might  turn  their  guns 
upon  the  colony  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  if 
it  was  located  at  the  southern  end  of  the  island  of  the 
Manhadoes,  it  was  believed  that  they  would  sail  quietly 
away  again  if  they  found  the  place  bearing  the  appear- 
ance of  being  uninhabited.  These  ideas  nearly  pre- 
vailed with  the  first  settlers,  but  after  an  appeal  to 
national  pride,  wiser  counsels  had  their  way,  and  it  was 
resolved  to  begin  operations  at  the  point  which  is  now 


164  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

the  Battery.  All  opposition  was  silenced  as  soon  as 
it  was  demonstrated  that  a  canal  could  be  dug  there 
at  once,  running  through  what  is  now  Broad  Street, 
and  ending  at  the  city  wall,  the  present  Wall  Street. 
This  at  once  lent  the  charm  of  home  to  the  chosen 
site,  and  all  was  peace. 

Sitting  here,  with  every  little  wave  of  the  harbor 
dancing  in  the  sunlight  just  as  it  did  forty  years  ago 
when  I  played  under  the  elms,  with  no  signs  warning 
one  to  keep  off  the  grass,  I  recall  the  Battery  as  I  first 
knew  it.  The  park  was  not  then  one-half  its  present 
size.  There  was  no  sea-wall.  The  tide  rippled  un- 
checked along  the  rocks  and  sand  that  made  the  beach. 
The  walks  were  unkempt,  and  the  benches  were  only 
rough  wooden  affairs.  But  the  breeze,  the  fresh  sea  air, 
the  whispering  leaves,  the  orioles  and  bluebirds,  and 
the  shade  were  there,  and  to  the  boys  of  the  period  its 
attractions  were  Elysian.  Castle  Garden,  then  a  frown- 
ing fortress  still  thought  capable  of  service,  was  reach- 
ed by  a  wooden  bridge,  and  the  salt-water  lapped  its 
massive  foundations  on  all  sides.  The  American  In- 
stitute Fair  was  then  held  within  its  walls,  and  on 
these  occasions  the  boys  explored  it  from  the  flag-staff 
to  the  magazine,  and  held  high  carnival  there. 

A  number  of  the  Knickerbocker  merchants  and  law- 
yers lived  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Bowling  Green 
and  the  Battery  a  generation  ago.  Stephen  Whitney 
had  his  home  on  Bowling  Green  Place.  Robert  Goelet 
lived  on  State  Street,  and  his  brother  Peter  at  No.  32 
Broadway.  The  Rhinelanders  had  recently  removed 
up-town  to  Washington  Square,  the  Schermerhorns  to 
Great  Jones  Street,  and  the  Leroys  to  Lafayette  Place, 
but  a  large  number  of  the  old  families  of  the  city  still 


THE   OLD   MCCOMB   MANSION 


lingered  around  lower  Broadway  and  the  adjacent 
streets,  and  the  Battery  was  always  the  terminus  of 
their  afternoon  walk,  whether  they  lived  in  its  vicinity 
or  as  far  up-town  as  the  centre  of  fashion,  at  Bleecker 
and  Bond  streets.  The  day's  parade  of  belles  and 
beaux  led  past  Trinity  and  to  the  old  trysting-place, 
under  the  trees  by  the  water-side. 

Stephen  Whitney,  who  was  one  of  New  York's  few 
millionaires  in  his  day,  was  a  well-known  character  in 
the  young  metropolis.  Had  he  lived  a  generation 
later,  "  Uncle  Stephen,"  as  all  the  young  men  called 
him,  would  have  been  a  power  in  "  the  Street."  As 


166  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

it  was,  he  knew  enough  to  hold  the  money  he  had 
made,  and  his  shrewdness  was  proverbial.  When  Ste- 
phen Whitney  was  buried  from  old  Trinity,  his  was 
the  last  Knickerbocker  house  below  Broadway.  His 
house  was  closed,  and  the  current  of  business  buried 
it  under  the  waves.  The  old  man  had  dreamed  that 
some  day  commerce  would  find  it  more  convenient  to 
occupy  the  upper  end  of  the  island,  with  Harlem  River 
for  a  ship-canal  and  Long  Island  Sound  for  the  en- 
trance and  exit  of  its  fleet,  and  so  the  Battery  would 
again  be  surrounded  by  comfortable  homes  and  echo 
to  the  feet  of  the  descendants  of  the  people  he  had 
known.  If  his  ghost  ever  walks  in  that  direction,  it 
must  shiver  while  it  anathematizes  with  voiceless  fury 
the  elevated  railroad  structure  that  defaces  the  park. 

Was  it  yesterday  that  I  sat  on  one  of  the  benches 
in  the  old  Battery  Park  and  listened  with  rapt  atten- 
tion to  Johnny  Battin,  as  he  told  me  of  the  scenes  lie- 
had  witnessed  from  that  point  when  he  was  a  young 
man  and  wore  the  red  coat  of  King  George.  For 
"  Johnny,"  as  everybody  called  him,  had  been  a  cornet 
of  horse  in  the  British  Army,  and  had  served  Lord 
Howe  as  bearer  of  despatches  both  to  England  and 
many  a  point  in  the  colonies.  He  had  known  An- 
dre, Burgoyne,  Clinton,  and  all  the  British  generals, 
had  fought  in  the  battles  of  Long  Island  and  Fort 
Washington,  and  was  the  last  survivor  of  those  desper- 
ate encounters.  A  man  of  warm  heart,  his  sympathies 
at  last  went  over  to  the  side  of  the  colonists,  and  when 
peace  was  declared  he  made  his  home  here,  sought  out 
a  pretty  Jersey  girl  for  a  wife,  and  made  her  a  happy 
woman  for  five-and-sixty  years.  "  Johnny  "  Battin  was 
ninety-four  years  old  when  I  was  ten,  and  he  lived  to 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  167 

be  over  one  hundred  years  of  age,  and  then  went 
quietly  to  sleep  like  a  little  child.  Until  heyhad  passed 
the  century  mile-post  he  never  passed  a  day  when  he 
did  not  walk  from  his  hosiery  shop  (he  lived  in  the 
same  building)  in  Greenwich  Street,  near  Warren,  to 
the  Battery.  I  can  see  him  now  in  the  old-fashioned 
cut-away  coat  of  drab,  with  knee-breeches  and  gray 
worsted  stockings  and  low  shoes  with  silver  buckles, 
which  he  always  wore.  His  hair  was  white  and  long, 
and  gathered  in  a  knot  behind.  There  was  a  snow- 
white  frill  in  his  shirt,  and  his  neckerchief  was  white 
also,  and  ample.  In  his  hand  he  carried  a  substantial 
cane,  which  he  scarcely  needed  even  when  he  had  long 
passed  ninety,  so  erect  was  he  and  soldierly. 

"  Felix,"  said  Johnny  Battin,  "  I  like  to  come  here 
to  the  Battery,  and  think  of  all  the  changes  I  have 
seen  hereabouts  in  the  last  seventy  years.  Yes,  it 
was  seventy  years  ago  since  I  saw  the  British  flag 
hoisted  on  the  battery  that  stood  back  there  by  the 
Bowling  Green.  We  camped  up  in  East  Broadway 
the  night  General  Putnam  evacuated  these  barracks 
and  stole  up  along  the  Hudson  to  Fort  Washington. 
That  night  a  terrible  fire  broke  out  by  the  river-side 
here,  and  swept  up  Broadway,  carrying  away  Trinity 
Church  and  nearly  every  other  building  as  far  as  St. 
Paul's.  It  was  a  terrible  conflagration,  and  lit  up 
everything  almost  as  clear  as  day.  The  houses  were 
nearly  all  of  wood,  and  by  daybreak  more  than  a  third 
of  the  city  was  in  ashes.  The  brick  houses  on  Broad- 
way, opposite  the  Bowling  Green,  were  all  that  were 
left  standing,  and  there  Lord  Howe  made  his  head- 
quarters. They  are  fine  houses  still,  with  marble 
mantel-pieces,  and  huge  mirrors,  and  great  mahogany 


l68  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

doors.  If  you  go  into  the  second  one  some  time  they 
will  show  you  the  room  that  Andre  occupied  for  his 
office  when  he  was  adjutant-general,  and  you  will  see 
a  slit  in  the  door  into  which  I  used  to  slip  his  de- 
spatches. I  was  sorry  for  Andre,  but  he  knew  what  he 
was  about,  and  took  his  chances.  In  the  first  house 
they  used  to  have  grand  balls,  and  Lord  Howe  and 


TRINITY   CHURCH 
The  first  edifice.     Destroyed  in  the  fire  of  1776 


A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW   YORK  169 

Lord  Percy  and  the  rest  of  the  noblemen/who  were 
fighting  against  your  forefathers,  my  boy,  held  a  sort 
of  colonial  court  there  which  seemed  to  bewitch  the 
royalist  belles.  Yes,  and  they  were  beautiful,  very 
beautiful — but  all  dust  and  ashes  now,  my  boy. 

"  After  the  war  was  ended  they  swept  away  the 
batteries — for  there  was  more  than  one — and  the  bar- 
racks. Then  they  built  a  fine  large  mansion  of  brick 
where  they  had  stood.  It  faced  the  Bowling  Green, 
and  looked  up  Broadway.  The  view  from  the  windows 
was  superb,  for  the  ground  was  rising,  and  a  long,  low 
flight  of  steps  led  up  to  the  main  entrance.  Washing- 
ton was  here  then  as  President,  and  this  was  called  the 
Government  House,  and  was  intended  as  his  residence. 
But  the  Capitol  was  removed  to  Philadelphia,  and  then 
to  Washington,  and  Washington  never  occupied  our 
White  House.  For  a  few  years  it  was  used  as  a  hos- 
pital, and  then  it  was  sold,  and  the  block  of  brick 
houses  was  erected  there,  in  one  of  which  Mr.  Whitney 
lives. 

"  It  looks  like  a  long  way  over  to  Staten  Island,  but 
I  remember  when  the  bay  was  frozen  over  solid  from 
the  Battery  to  what  is  now  the  Quarantine  grounds. 
Our  troops  crossed  over  on  the  ice  from  Staten  Island, 
and  dragged  their  cannon  with  them.  I  carried  the 
orders  from  Lord  Howe,  and  it  startled  them,  I  can 
tell  you  ;  but  they  came  through  all  right.  Did  your 
grandmother  never  tell  you  that  she  had  crossed  on 
the  ice,  too  ?  Let  me  see  ;  it  was  in  the  hard  winter  of 
1780  when  the  troops  marched  over — a  terrible  winter, 
when  many  poor  people  starved  or  froze  to  death  here, 
and  it  was  thirty  years  later  that  the  bay  was  frozen 
over  solidly  the  second  time.  My  wife  went  in  a 


i  ;o 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK 


sleigh  to  the  Quarantine  station,  and  she  took  your 
grandmother  with  her.  When  they  reached  Staten 
Island  they  found  the  snow  was  so  deep  that  the  peo- 
ple had  carved  a  road  out  under  an  arch  of  snow.  So 
many  sleighs  crossed  that  a  man  built  a  half-way  house 
— just  a  shanty,  you  know — on  the  ice,  and  made  quite 
a  little  sum  by  selling  refreshments  to  the  travellers. 


RUINS    OF   TRINITY   CHURCH 

"  I  have  seen  a  great  many  changes,  my  boy,  in  sev- 
enty long  years,  and  I  am  more  than  ninety-four.  But 
it  has  been  a  pleasant  and  a  happy  life,  and  its  happi- 
est part  has  been  lived  in  my  little  home  on  Greenwich 
Street.  It  won't  be  long  now  before  I  am  called  to 
meet  the  King  of  kings,  but  you  will  live  to  see 
greater  changes  than  any  I  have  known.  Love  your 
country,  boy,  and  love  your  home.  It's  an  old  man's 
advice  and  the  secret  of  happiness." 

I  take  Johnny  Battin's  hand  as  he  rises,  and  we  pass 
out  of  the  wooden  gate  and  up  Broadway.  He  knows 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  i;i 

everybody  that  we  meet,  and  all  have  a  courteous  word 
for  him.  Some  of  the  great  men  of  the  day  are  on  the 
promenade.  Michael  Hoffman,  the  Naval  Officer,  and 
Surveyor  Elijah  F.  Purdy  pass  arm  in  arm,  and  I  look 
up  to  them  with  awe  as  mighty  politicians.  Of  "  Cor- 
neel  "  and  "  Jake  "  Vanderbilt,  who  have  a  steamboat 
office  at  34  Broadway,  I  have  far  less  fear,  for  they 
live  on  Staten  Island,  and  seem  to  be  but  ordinary 
men.  Mayor  Havemeyer  is  a  fine-looking  man,  and 
walks  briskly  up  to  his  residence  on  Vandam  Street. 
Near  the  City  Hotel,  a  great  hostlery  then,  we  pass 
"  Tommy  '.'  Stanford,  of  the  book- publishing  firm  of 
Stanford  &  Swords,  on  Broadway,  near  Cedar  Street, 
and  he  stops  to  have  a  chat.  A  decidedly  homely  man, 
he  has  pleasant  manners  and  a  shrewd  business  look. 
He  knows  my  father,  and  pats  my  head.  As  we  leave 
him,  Johnny  Battin  points  to  the  old  Dutch  Church  on 
Nassau  Street,  and  tells  me  that  he  used  it  as  a  riding- 
school  seventy  years  ago.  It  is  a  wonderful  place  to 
me,  open  from  8  A.M.  to  7  P.M.,  and  sending  out  its 
great  Northern  mail  every  afternoon  at  three,  its  great 
Eastern  mail  at  the  same  hour,  except  on  Sunday,  and 
its  Southern  mail  every  night,  and  opening  its  doors 
on  Sundays  for  an  hour  in  the  morning  and  afternoon. 
When  we  pass  St.  Paul's  Church  the  old  British  sol- 
dier takes  off  his  three-cornered  hat  before  the  monu- 
ment to  Major-general  Montgomery,  and  tells  me  of 
the  pageant  that  marked  the  bringing  back  of  the  dead 
hero's  body.  "  I  have  often  seen  President  Washing- 
ton come  here  to  church,"  he  says,  "  and  he  walked  in 
very  quietly,  without  any  display,  and  when  he  was 
once  in  his  pew  he  paid  no  attention  to  anything  but 
his  prayer-book  and  the  clergyman."  And  then  the 


CITY    HOTEL,   BROADWAY.       1812 

old  man  tells  me  of  the  church,  as  he  saw  it  first  in 
summer,  surrounded  by  pleasant  fields,  and  with  noth- 
ing between  its  front  porch  and  the  river  but  a  stretch 
of  greensward  ;  for,  though  St.  Paul  looks  out  upon 
Broadway  from  his  lofty  niche,  the  church  itself  turns 
its  back  upon  that  bustling  thoroughfare.  But  I  am 
more  interested  in  his  story  of  the  suicide's  grave  that 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


173 


lies  directly  under  our  feet.  A  son  of  a  forrrfer  rector 
of  Trinity  took  his  own  life,  and  they  would  not  bury 
him  in  the  church-yard,  but  laid  his  poor,  mutilated 

body  at  rest  be- 
neath the  sidewalk, 
just  outside  of  the 
church's  gate.  I 
will  never  forget 
this  as  I  pass  the 
spot,  though  ten 
thousand  other  feet, 
pass  lightly  over  the 
dead  man's  uncon- 
secrated  ashes. 

A  group  of  men 
stand  on  the  front 
steps  of  the  Astor 
House,  and  I  look 
at  them  with  a  vast 
deal  of  reverence. 
It  is  currently  re- 
ported among  my 
school-mates  that 
the  guests  at  their 
granite  hostelry, 
which  rises  high 
above  all  surround- 
ing buildings  with 
the  sole  exception 

MONUMENT  TO    GENERAL   MONTGOMERY          Qf     g^     Paul's     haVC 

to  pay  one  dollar  a 

day  for  their  entertainment.     It  is  an  enormous  sum 
to  expend  for  board  and  lodging,  and  my  boyish  mind 


174  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 

is  lost  in  contemplation  of  the  amount  of  luxurious 
ease  which  it  is  possible  to  purchase  with  such  a  price. 

My  little  feet  trot  along  in  syncopated  rhythm  with 
the  nonagenarian's  slow  pace  as  we  leave  Broadway  and 
turn  down  Warren  Street,  and  it  seems  almost  a  long 
enough  journey  to  have  afforded  us  a  pretext  for  taking 
a  Kipp  &  Brown  stage.  But  Johnny  is  an  old  soldier, 
and  it  is  a  matter  of  daily  duty  with  him  to  take  his 
"  constitutional."  At  last,  however,  we  have  reached 
Greenwich  Street.  There,  in  front  of  the  modest  little 
store,  hangs  a  gigantic  wooden  stocking  in  glaring 
plaid  coloring,  and  in  the  doorway  stands  Johnny  Bat- 
tin's  son  Joseph,  who  was  the  first  of  the  city  militia- 
men to  grasp  the  hand  of  Lafayette  when  he  landed  at 
the  Battery  on  his  second  visit  to  this  country,  and — 

"  Papa,  what's  the  matter — are  you  dreaming?"  It 
is  my  little  twelve-year-old  son  who  is  tugging  at  my 
hand  and  calling  to  me,  and  we  are  standing  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs  that  lead  up  to  the  Warren  Street 
station  of  the  elevated  railroad. 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  175 


CHAPTER   XV 

LIFE  AT  EIGHTY -SEVEN  YEARS  —  MEMORIES  OF  ROBERT  FULTON  — 
WHAT  THE  FIRST  STEAMBOAT  LOOKED  LIKE — SUNDAY  IN  GREEN- 
WICH VILLAGE  —  A  PRIMITIVE  CONGREGATION  —  FLIRTING  IN  THE 
GALLERIES 

MY  friend  the  school  trustee  is  eighty-seven  years 
old  in  March.  His  hair  is  white  and  his  frame  is  a 
little  bent,  but  his  cheek  is  still  "  like  a  rose  in  the 
snow,"  and  his  heart  is  as  that  of  a  little  child.  My 
little  boy  said  to  me  once:  "  Papa,  when  grandpa  gets 
to  be  real  old,  he  will  grow  down  and  be  as  small  as 
me,  and  then  we  can  play  together,  can't  we  ?"  I  do 
not  know  from  what  source  the  little  child,  who  had 
not  yet  been  graduated  into  trousers,  had  drawn  the 
strange  idea  that  as  men  grew  older  they  grew  down 
into  childhood  physically ;  but  I  have  thought  there 
was  not  a  little  of  good  philosophy  in  it,  and  the  inci- 
dent came  back  to  me  as  I  marked  the  bowed  shoul- 
ders of  my  old  friend,  and  noted  how  he  was  growing 
into  a  beautiful  childhood  spiritually.  The  late  Ho- 
ratio Seymour  said  to  me,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  when 
his  friends  were  urging  him  to  allow  his  name  to  be 
used  once  again  as  a  Presidential  candidate,  "  I  have 
only  one  thing  to  ask  of  the  world  now — to  be  allowed 
to  grow  old  as  gracefully  as  I  can."  Then  he  went  on 
to  speak  of  the  reluctance  that  many  showed  to  admit 
the  march  of  time,  and  of  his  own  eagerness  to  be 


I?6  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

relegated  to  the  rank  of  adviser,  and  be  relieved  from 
active  duty. 

As  I  write,  there  come  back  to  me  memories  of 
that  hospitable  home  on  the  Deerfield  Hills,  in  which 
stood  the  clock  that  had  ticked  off  the  hours  to  Bur- 
goyne  when  he  was  a  captive  in  the  Schuyler  mansion, 
the  favorite  chair  of  Bishop  White,  and  a  hundred 
other  historical  relics,  of  colonial  and  Revolutionary 
days ;  and  I  wonder  if  it  will  be  amiss  /or  me  to  say, 
apart  from  partisanship,  and  after  close  knowledge  of 
many  public  men,  that  Horatio  Seymour  was  the  most 
complete  Christian  gentleman  I  ever  knew?  The  pen 
that  once  pursued  him  bitterly  in  political  life  should 
be  allowed  to  scratch  this  laurel  on  the  rough  bowlder 
that  marks  his  grave. 

My  friend  the  school  trustee  was  born  in  this  city, 
on  the  eastern  edge  of  what  was  then  known  as  Green- 
wich Village.  The  house  in  which  he  was  born  stood 
on  a  hill  not  far  from  the  lower  end  of  Sixth  Avenue, 
and  it  had  no  neighbors  in  sight  except  on  the  road 
that  led  up  to  the  little  hamlet  on  the  banks  of  the 
Hudson,  for  which  Admiral  Sir  Peter  Warren  had 
borrowed  a  name  from  England's  home  for  veteran 
sailors  when  he  set  up  his  baronial  mansion  here. 
The  family  had  just  moved  from  their  old  homestead 
on  Duane  Street,  near  Chatham,  and  their  friends 
deemed  them  crazy  for  going  out  into  the  wilderness 
to  live.  This  house  disappeared  long  since,  but  the 
frame  dwelling  to  which  my  old  friend  brought  his 
bride  sixty  years  ago,  and  which  he  had  erected,  still 
stands  in  Jones  Street,  the  oldest  residence  in  the 
Ninth  Ward.  The  house  cannot  tell  its  story,  but  it 
is  like  a  revelation  to  talk  with  the  white-haired  pa- 


SIR  PETER  WARREN'S  HOUSE,  GREENWICH  VILLAGE 


triarch  who  built  it.  He  has  seen  Fulton  and  Aaron 
Burr,  and  talked  with  them  ;  he  remembers  when  the 
friction  match,  anthracite  coal,  and  gas  were  intro- 
duced in  this  city  ;  when  the  first  stage  began  to  run, 
and  the  first  steamboat  ploughed  its  slow  way  up  the 
Hudson.  He  was  a  man  of  mature  years  at  the  time 
when  the  first  locomotive  ran  out  of  New  York,  and 
the  telegraph  and  the  sewing-machine  were  invented 
and  turned  to  practical  use. 

When  first  he  began  to  go  to  school  he  walked  with 
his  sisters  from  their  home  in  Greenwich  Village  to 
the  old  Dutch  Reformed  school,  then  situated  in  Nas- 
sau Street,  opposite  to  the  old  Middle  Dutch  Church, 
the  site  of  the  present  Mutual  Life  Insurance  Compa- 
ny's building.  Their  long  walk  led  them  across  Mi- 
netta  Brook  and  down  by  Burr's  Pond  (on  his  Rich- 
mond Hill  estate),  into  which  the  brook  flowed,  through 
the  thick  woods  that  extended  from  Macdougal  and 


178  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

Downing  streets,  and  thence  out  into  the  cornfields 
and  meadows  that  stretched  down  to  Canal  Street.  It 
was  only  when  they  had  crossed  the  bridge  there  that 
they  had  reached  the  suburbs  of  the  city.  In  all  their 
long  walk  they  had  to  make  but  one  turn,  out  of  Broad- 
way into  Liberty  Street.  It  was  a  journey  that  would 
have  appalled  the  school-child  of  to-day.  But  there 
were  no  conveniences  of  suburban  travel  at  that  time. 
A  stage  made  a  daily  trip  from  Greenwich  Village  to 
John  Street  and  back  every  week-day,  to  accommodate 
business  men  who  lived  out  of  town,  but  the  fare  was 
two  shillings  each  way,  and  that  was  entirely  too  great 
a  price  to  pay  for  education. 

When  a  boy  of  eight,  my  patriarchal  friend  saw  Ful- 
ton's steamboat,  the  Clermont,  pass  Greenwich  Village 
in  making  her  first  trip  up  the  Hudson.  Everybody 
had  heard  of  this  apparently  foolhardy  undertaking, 
and  all  were  on  the  watch  for  a  glimpse  of  "  Fulton's 
folly."  The  school -children  were  wild  with  excite- 
ment, and  when  news  came  that  the  boat  was  in  sight, 
they  ran  down  to  a  high  bluff  that  stood  at  the  foot 
of  Morton  Street  and  cheered  it  as  it  passed.  "  What 
did  it  look  like?"  I  asked.  The  old  man  chuckled.  "  I 
told  people  afterwards,"  he  said,  "  that  it  was  as  big 
as  a  barn  and  a  block  long,  and  horrible  to  behold ; 
and  they  believed  it,  too.  But  in  reality  it  looked  like 
a  big  scow,  with  unprotected  paddles  in  the  centre, 
and  a  walking-beam  and  other  machinery  half  exposed 
to  view.  It  was  a  very  primitive  affair,  and  did  not 
move  very  fast ;  but  to  us  it  was  a  wonder  then,  as  it 
went  without  sails."  Then  he  went  on  to  tell  me  that 
he  had  often  seen  Robert  Fulton  afterwards  in  the 
shop  in  which  he  had  learned  his  trade,  and  where  the 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  179 

great  inventor  was  overseeing  the  manufacture  of  ma- 
chinery for  the  steam-frigate  which  he  had  planned  for 
the  defence  of  New  York.  The  frigate  was  a  species 
of  floating  battery,  which  proved  to  be  impracticable, 
yet  it  was  the  seed  idea  of  monitors  and  turreted  ships, 
and  did  not  ripen  because  its  growth  was  premature. 
Fulton  heard  nothing  while  in  the  shop,  and  saw  noth- 
ing. With  eye  and  mind  intent  on  the  machinery  or 
plans  before  him,  he  would  not  break  away  unless  some 
one  put  a  hand  on  his  shoulder  and  called  him  back  by 
a  touch. 

Two  of  the  company  on  Fulton's  first  steamboat 
voyage  down  the  Hudson  have  but  lately  passed  to 
the  other  side  of  the  sea  of  time.  Dr.-William  Perry, 


THE   CLERMONT 

who  lived  at  Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  and  who  sur- 
vived his  ninety-eighth  birthday,  rode  from  Albany  to 
Kingston  on  the  return  trip  of  the  steamboat,  and  had 
a  vivid  remembrance  of  the  incidents  of  that  eventful 
voyage.  He  declared  that  the  name  of  the  boat  was 
not  the  Clermont,  as  has  been  generally  accepted,  but 
Katharine  of  Claremont,  so  called  in  honor  of  Fulton's 
wife,  who  was  a  daughter  of  Chancellor  Livingston, 
and  her  family,  to  whose  liberality  he  owed  the  money 


l8o  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

to  carry  out  his  idea  of  a  vessel  propelled  by  steam. 
The  last  surviving  passenger  on  this  famous  voyage 
was  Col.  George  L.  Perkins,  of  Norwich,  Conn.,  who, 
until  his  century-mark,  continued  in  service  as  active 
treasurer  of  the  Norwich  and  Worcester  Railroad 
Company. 

There  is  an  old-fashioned  Methodist  Episcopal 
church  at  the  corner  of  Bedford  and  Morton  streets, 
at  whose  side  I  remember  that  long  ago  a  quiet  little 
burying -ground  stretched.  These  serene  and  silent 
settlements  of  the  dead  have  always  had  a  strange  fas- 
cination for  me.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  half- 
forgotten  nooks  in  old  city  by-ways  where  the  men 
and  women  of  a  former  generation  sleep — those  about 
whose  lives  hang  the  romance  of  the  days  before  I  was 
born.  I  never  pass  the  greensward  that  softly  roofs 
them  in  from  our  eyes  but  I  wish  that  I  could  ques- 
tion them  concerning  the  days  in  which  they  lived. 
Some  one  had  told  me  that  a  half-century  ago,  when 
a  smaller  church  building  occupied  the  site  at  Morton 
and  Bedford  streets,  the  burial-ground  was  more  ex- 
tensive, and  I  remembered  that  at  one  time  it  was 
more  conspicuous,  so  I  went  to  my  old  friend,  whose 
memory  I  knew  to  be  wonderfully  bright,  and  asked 
him  how  far  back  he  could  recall  this  old-time  sanctu- 
ary of  the  disciples  of  John  Wesley.  His  eyes  twin- 
kled triumphantly  as  he  replied :  "  Why,  I  remember 
when  it  was  built.  I  attended  with  my  mother  the 
first  Methodist  meetings  held  here.  We  belonged  to 
the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  at  the  corner  of  Bleecker 
and  West  Tenth  streets — it  was  Herring  and  Amos 
streets  then  —  but  we  got  drawn  into  the  carpenter- 
shop  that  was  the  cradle  of  Methodism  here,  and, 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  l8l 

praise  the  Lord,  I  have  been  in  the  way  ever  since." 
It  was  the  story  of  a  city  church  that  he  told  me  then, 
and  this  was  also  a  story  of  the  city's  growth,  though 
with  this  difference,  that,  unlike  many  another  congre- 
gation, the  people  of  old  Bedford  Street  Church  still 
hold  the  fort,  and  are  as  strong  as  they  were  half  a 
century  ago.  I  saw  the  church  filled  in  the  storm  of 
a  late  Sunday  night,  and  the  altar  railing  occupied  by 
nearly  a  score  of  penitents.  And  up  from  all  corners 
of  the  church  rang  the  triumphant  notes  of  the  old 
hymns  with  which  Charles  Wesley  sang  into  the  King- 
dom of  his  Master  and  theirs  a  multitude  whom  no 
man  can  number. 

The  first  meetings  of  the  Methodists  of  Greenwich 
Village  were  held  at  the  house  of  Samuel  Walgrove, 
on  the  north  side  of  Morton  Street,  not  far  from 
Bleecker.  Thence  they  were  transferred  to  his  car- 
penter-shop, whose  first  floor  was  carefully  swept  on 
Saturday  afternoons,  and  arranged  with  benches  of 
rough  lumber,  so  as  to  accommodate  from  fifty  to 
sixty  persons.  This  was  in  1808.  It  did  not  take 
long  for  this  zealous  little  congregation  to  outgrow  its 
limits  and  demand  more  room.  Five  lots  were  pur- 
chased at  the  corner  of  Bedford  and  Morton  streets 
for  $250  each,  and  there  a  church  was  built  in  1810. 
It  was  a  plain  edifice,  without  steeple,  blinds,  or  orna- 
ment ;  its  sides  were  shingled,  and  it  was  painted  the 
color  of  cream.  Two  separate  entrances  led  into  the 
two  aisles — one  for  males  and  the  other  for  females. 
The  sexes  were  kept  rigidly  apart  for  years.  "  Yes," 
said  my  aged  informant,  "  we  had  a  hard  time  keeping 
the  boys  and  girls  apart  after  the  galleries  were  built, 
but  we  did  it  for  a  while.  They  could  only  sit  and 


l82  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

wink  and  blush  at  each  other."  And  then  he  laughed 
softly  to  himself,  as  if  memory  had  brought  back  sum- 
mer days  when  the  corn  could  be  seen  waving  outside 
of  the  windows  of  the  old  shingled  church,  and  the 
bluebirds  and  robins  were  twittering  in  the  willows, 
and  the  eye  would  wander,  in  spite  of  the  conscience, 
to  the  opposite  row  of  benches,  where,  demure  and 
sweet,  with  dimples  struggling  up  to  the  corners  of 
the  mouth  and  flushes  of  pink  lighting  up  the  severely 
simple  Sunday  bonnet,  sat  the  dearest  girl  in  all  the 
world.  An  old  story  ?  Yes,  it  was  an  old  story  even 
then.  But  ask  your  grandson  if  it  is  not  new. 

The  pulpit  was  a  lofty,  pepper-box  structure,  that 
subsequently  went  with  the  high -backed  pews  and 
other  furniture  to  decorate  the  interior  of  a  church 
for  colored  people  on  West  Fifteenth  Street,  when,  in 
1830,  the  old  building  was  enlarged  by  an  addition  of 
six  feet  on  the  front  and  fourteen  feet  on  one  of  the 
sides,  which  made  a  singular  exterior  and  decidedly 
queer  interior.  Outside,  Nature  made  some  amends, 
through  a  row  of  poplars  on  the  Morton  Street  side 
and  two  comely  willows  on  Bedford  Street.  But  in- 
side all  was  bare  and  hard  except  around  the  altar 
space,  which  was  carpeted.  This,  together  with  the 
placing  of  blinds  at  the  pulpit  windows,  was  an  inno- 
vation that  was  stoutly  resisted.  It  was  inveighed 
against  by  the  elders  of  the  congregation  as  yielding 
to  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  the  world.  But  the 
church  prospered.  John  Newland  Maffit,  the  famous 
revivalist,  held  wonderful  gatherings  in  the  old  meet- 
ing-house (no  one  called  it  a  church  then),  and  in  1840 
its  membership  of  nine  hundred  had  outgrown  its  for- 
mer accommodations,  and  the  present  comfortable  and 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  183 

commodious  edifice  was  built,  which  still  holds  its  own 
in  the  old  Ninth  Ward.  Under  the  old  church  had 
been  a  cellar  in  which  cider  was  stored  ;  under  the 
new  the  space  was  turned  to  better  account  in  class- 
rooms and  an  ample  lecture-room,  where  the  old  rail- 
ing, at  which  so  many  thousands  of  converts  had  knelt 
in  the  days  of  Maffit  and  Rice,  stands  as  a  monument 
to  past  simplicity  and  power ;  for  there  was  power 
there  from  the  first,  and  "  the  shout  of  a  king  was 
among  them."  An  old  gentleman  of  eighty-one,  who 
used  sometimes  to  walk  up  to  this  church  from  his 
home  in  Vesey  Street  through  the  swamps  and  mead- 
ows above  Canal  Street,  that  then  were  filled  with  snipe 
and  woodcock  from  the  Jersey  shore,  and  who  liked  to 
stop  and  drink  at  a  beautiful  spring  under  some  chest- 
nut-trees in  the  fields  south  of  Morton  Street,  said  to 
me :  "  They  used  to  call  this  the  shouting  church,  and 
I  often  saw  the  men  sitting  in  the  pews  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves and  shouting  as  if  they  were  wild." 

It  was  in  1841  that  the  steamship  President  sailed 
from  New  York,  never  to  return.  Among  her  passen- 
gers was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cookman,  father  of  the  late  Rev. 
John  E.  Cookman,  D.D.,  pastor  of  the  Bedford  Street 
Church,  and  of  the  Rev.  Alfred  Cookman,  famed  in 
Methodist  annals  as  a  leader  in  the  spiritual  Israel. 
Pastor  and  people  in  the  old  Greenwich  Village  con- 
gregation are  suited  to  each  other,  and  work  in  won- 
derful unison.  The  church  that  has  seen  eighty  win- 
ters pass  over  its  head,  and  that  has  kept  on  growing 
all  that  time,  is  likely  to  breast  successfully  the  storms 
of  centuries  to  come.  So  may  it  be. 


184  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 


CHAPTER    XVI 

ON  THE  EAST  SIDE — THE  OLD  SHIPPING  MERCHANTS — JACOB  LEISLER— 
A  PARADISE  OF  CHURCHES — THE  DOMINIE'S  GARDEN— MORAL  AND 
RELIGIOUS  SANITY  OF  OLD  NEW  YORK 

"  WHAT  is  the  matter  with  the  east  side?"  writes  a 
friend,  whose  family  homestead  was  once  on  Pearl 
Street. 

To  which  I  make  answer  by  turning  the  steps  of 
the  tourist  to  a  quarter  of  the  city  that  was  the  earli- 
est business  centre,  and  that  held  the  homes  of  the 
wealthier  colonists,  at  a  time  when  the  splendors  of 
the  old  Walton  House  were  quoted  in  the  British  Par- 
liament as  an  incentive  to  the  tax-gatherer.  Yet  there 
are  some  recollections  which  sadden  me  as  I  take  my 
way  up  the  water-front  of  the  East  River.  In  my 
boyhood  the  wharves  were  filled  with  clipper  ships 
and  packets  that  bore  the  flag  of  the  Union,  and  fur- 
ther up  were  great  ship-yards  where  we  school-boys 
went  to  see  the  great  vessels  launched.  I  am  enough 
of  a  free-trader  to  be  at  war  with  the  dog-in-the-manger 
policy  of  our  Government  which  forbids  our  merchants 
on  the  one  hand  to  go  into  the  open  market  and  pur- 
chase ships  built  in  other  lands,  and  on  the  other 
hand  retains  the  heavy  war  taxes  on  material  which 
prevents  them  from  entering  into  competition  with 
foreign  shipwrights.  My  uncles  were  shipping  mer- 
chants in  South  Street,  near  Wall  (above  the  door  I 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  187 

can  still  read  the  faded  lettering  of  the  sign),  who  were 
compelled  to  sell  their  ships  when  Confederate  cruis- 
ers began  their  depredations.  The  ghost  of  our  lost 
commercial  marine  haunts  my  steps  as  I  pass  by. 

The  east  side  from  the  earliest  time  was  the  cradle 
of  mercantile  life.  The  old  Dutch  founders  of  the 
city  settled  it  by  locating  their  canal  on  Broad  Street 
and  anchoring  their  vessels  in  the  East  River,  on 
whose  banks  their  primitive  wharves  and  storehouses 
were  built.  There  is  not  a  street  between  the  Battery 
and  the  City  Hall  Park  which  is  not  redolent  with 
the  romance  of  the  old  merchants  of  the  metropolis. 
They  were  a  social  power  in  colonial  days,  a  political 
power  in  the  years  that  saw  the  struggle  for  independ- 
ence, a  progressive  power  in  the  building  up  of  the 
young  republic.  To  write  their  story  would  be  to 
give  the  history  of  the  rise  and  prosperity  of  the  city. 
Yet  their  social,  business,  and  domestic  life  in  the  ear- 
lier part  of  this  century  is  a  theme  to  tempt  sorely 
the  saunterer's  pen. 

I  remember  when  a  boy  frequently  visiting  the 
store  of  Valentine  &  Bartholomew,  on  Front  .Street, 
in  which  one  of  my  uncles  was  the  youngest  clerk. 
It  was  a  dingy  place.  The  front  was  filled  with  coffee 
and  sugar  in  bags  and  barrels,  and  in  the  rear  was  a 
bare,  bleak  office,  containing  high  desks  with  spindle 
legs,  wooden  stools  and  chairs,  and  neither  carpet  nor 
anything  else  approaching  luxury.  In  winter  a  small 
fire  of  Liverpool  coal- made  a  dismal  attempt  to  heat 
the  atmosphere.  It  was  a  fair  type  of  the  offices  of 
the  period.  As  for  the  clerks,  they  were  expected  to 
work  early  and  late.  The  junior  clerk  had  to  be  on 
hand  by  seven  o'clock  to  admit  the  porter,  and  help 


NO.  2   BROADWAY,    1798 


him  sweep  and  set  things  to  rights.  The  modern 
clerk  would  think  himself  insulted  if  set  to  such  tasks. 
Yet  out  of  just  such  work  our  great  merchants  were 
moulded.  In  the  case  above  quoted  the  junior  clerk 
was  president  of  a  bank  in  Wall  Street  at  thirty  years 
of  age. 

It  would  not  do,  in  those  days,  to  judge  of  the 
prosperity  of  a  firm  by  its  surroundings.  A  story 
told  me  by  Jehiel  Post,  many  years  ago,  illustrates 
this  aptly.  His  father  and  uncle  were  in  business  in 
William  Street,  and  their  office  and  store  (in  which 
they  kept  only  samples)  were  as  bare  and  comfortless 
as  an  empty  barn.  It  happened  that  a  country  mer- 
chant had  received  a  note  of  theirs  in  course  of  trade, 
and  as  he  was  in  the  city  he  thought  it  would  do 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  189 

no  harm  to  look  them  up  and  find  how  they  stood. 
On  entering  the  store  he  was  astonished  to  find  their 
stock  apparently  very  low,  and  everything  bearing  the 
appearance  of  a  lack  of  trade.  Beginning  to  grow 
alarmed,  he  entered  the  back  office,  and  was  still  more 
disheartened  by  its  appearance  of  poverty.  At  last 
he  mustered  courage  to  remark  that  he  held  a  note  of 
the  firm.  "  Very  well,"  answered  the  senior  Jehiel, 
"  it  will  be  paid  when  due."  But  this  did  not  satisfy 
the  countryman,  and  he  ventured  to  inquire  if  the 
firm  would  not  discount  the  note.  "  We  don't  do 
business  that  way,"  was  the  cold  reply.  "But,  gen- 
tlemen," stammered  the  man,  "  I'll  take  off  10  per 
cent,  for  cash — yes,"  with  a  burst  of  terror,  "  I'll  take 
off  twenty."  "  Brother  Jehiel,  do  you  hear  that?" 
whispered  the  other  partner ;  "  let's  take  him  up." 
The  bargain  was  made  and  the  money  paid  down. 
"  Now,"  said  one  of  the  brothers,  "  if  you  please,  tell 
us  the  meaning  of  this  strange  transaction."  The 
countryman  made  his  confession,  and  the  brothers 
roared.  They  were  vastly  more  tickled  by  the  joke 
than  by  the  profit.  Calling  one  of  their  clerks,  they 
sent  him  around  with  the  visitor  to  the  bank  where 
the  note  was  to  be  paid,  and  there  the  latter  was  in- 
formed by  the  cashier  that  he  would  cash  the  check 
of  the  firm  any  day  for  $50,000. 

To  men  who  take  a  pride  in  New  York  as  their 
own  city  there  is  a  historic  charm  about  this  old  mer- 
cantile camping -ground  on  the  east  side.  There  is 
scarcely  a  street  which  has  not  its  patriotic  legend. 
The  old  tavern  of  Sam  Fraunce,  in  which  Washing- 
ton took  leave  of  his  officers  at  the  close  of  the  war,  is 
still  standing  at  Broad  and  Pearl  streets.  At  the  De 


190 


A   TOUR  AROUND  NEW    YORK 


Peyster  House,  on  Pearl  Street,  opposite  Cedar,  the 
general  had  his  headquarters.  On  Wall  Street  he 
was  inaugurated  President.  Through  these  streets 
the  Liberty  Boys  paraded.  Here  they  seized  a  load 
of  muskets  from  their  red  -  coated  guardians ;  there 
they  threw  into  the  street  the  types  of  the  loyalist 
printer,  Rivington.  Francis  Lewis,  a  merchant  doing 
business  on  Dock  Street,  and  Philip  Livingston,  whose 
store  was  at  the  corner  of  Water  Street  and  Maiden 
Lane,  were  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. 

It  is  a  good  many  years  since  I  noticed  on  the  wall 
of  the  Senate  Chamber  in  the  old  Capitol  at  Albany  a 


FRAUNCE'S  TAVERN,  BROAD  AND  PEARL  STREETS 

portrait  of  Jacob  Leisler.  A  wealthy  shipping  mer- 
chant of  New  York,  he  was  the  city's  first  martyr  to 
constitutional  liberty.  Called  by  the  Committee  of 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  19! 

Safety  and  the  people  to  fill  the  interregnum  occa- 
sioned by  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  his 
short  term  of  office,  from  1689  to  1691,  was  the  heroic 
age  of  the  young  colony.  At  his  summons,  in  May, 
1690,  the  first  Continental  Congress  assembled  in  the 
old  Stadt  Huys,  on  Coenties  Slip,  where  the  colonies 


- 


THE   STADT   HUYS 


of  New  York,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Plymouth, 
and  Maryland  were  represented.  New  Jersey  sent 
her  sympathies,  and  the  Philadelphia  Quakers  wrote 
that  it  was  "  ag't  their  princ'ls "  to  fight.  But  this 
sturdy  little  Congress  was  full  of  martial  zeal,  and 
voted  to  raise  a  grand  army  of  850  men  to  invade 
Canada  and  wipe  out  the  French.  The  people  stood 
by  Leisler;  the  aristocrats,  led  by  Col.  Nicholas  Bay- 
ard, opposed  him.  Finally  a  new  Governor  came 
from  England,  Colonel  Sloughter,  and  Leisler  was  de- 


192  A    TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

posed,  tried,  and  condemned  to  hang  for  treason.  It 
was  a  travesty  of  justice,  and  Sloughter  could  be  in- 
duced to  sign  the  death-warrant  only  after  a  wine 
supper  at  the  fort.  The  next  morning,  in  a  drenching 
rain,  Leisler  was  led  forth  to  execution.  ,  The  place 
selected  was  on  his  own  grounds,  on  Park  Row,  east 
of  the  Post-office,  in  full  view  of  his  home.  The  peo- 
ple shouted  and  groaned,  but  the  law  prevailed,  and 
they  had  to  content  themselves  with  tenderly  convey- 
ing the  corpse  of  the  martyr  to  a  quiet  grave  in  his 
own  garden,  near  at  hand.  Two  months  later  Colonel 
Sloughter  died  suddenly,  and  was  buried  in  the  Stuy- 
vesant  vault,  near  the  chapel  which  is  now  St.  Mark's 
Church ;  four  years  afterwards  the  taint  of  treason 
was  by  royal  proclamation  removed  from  the  name 
and  fame  of  Jacob  Leisler. 

The  lower  east  side  early  became  the  paradise  of 
churches.  The  Dutch  Reformed  had  the  South 
Church,  on  Exchange  Place ;  Middle  Church,  on  Nas- 
sau Street,  where  the  Mutual  Life  Building  now 
stands;  and  North  Church,  at  Fulton  and  William 
streets,  where  the  noon-day  prayer-meeting  still  com- 
memorates its  site.  These  were  large,  substantial 
structures,  each  with  its  graveyard  at  the  side,  dotted 
with  ancient  tombstones.  The  Presbyterians  built 
their  first  church  on  Wall  Street,  where  it  stood  for 
more  than  a  century.  Jonathan  Edwards  was  once 
its  pastor.  Their  second  congregation  erected  the  old 
"  Brick  Church  "  upon  the  triangular  lot  bounded  by 
Park  Row,  Beekman,  and  Nassau  streets,  and  known 
as  "  The  Vineyard."  I  remember  the  edifice  well. 
It  was  an  architectural  horror.  But  no  man  was  more 
revered  than  its  pastor,  Dr.  Gardner  Spring,  though 


NORTH  DUTCH  CHURCH,  FULTON  STREET 


he  was  not  a  particularly  attractive  preacher.  Anoth- 
er Presbyterian  church  stood  on  Cedar  Street,  and  a 
fourth  on  Rutgers  Street.  Theologically  the  denomi- 
nation was  a  power.  Drs.  Rogers,  McKnight,  Mille- 
dollar,  Romeyn,  and  Samuel  Miller  were  men  of  won- 
derful strength  in  the  pulpit,  as  were  also  Dr.  Mason, 
13 


194 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 


of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church  in  Cedar  Street, 
and  Dr.  McLeod,  of  the  Covenanters'  Church,  in  Cham- 
bers Street.  Drs.  Miller  and  Mason  were  the  intellect- 
ual leaders  of  the  New  York  pulpit  in  their  day,  their 
only  rival  being  Dr.  (afterwards  Bishop)  Hobart.  It 


PRESBYTERIAN   CHURCH,  WALL    STREET 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


195 


used   to   be    said   of   Dr.  Livingstone,  of  the   Dutch 
Church,  and  Bishop   Provoost,  of  the  Episcopal,  that 
"when  they  met  on  Sunday  and   exchanged  saluta- 
tions, they  took  up 
the    entire    street, 
and   reminded    be- 
holders of  two  frig- 
ates    under    full 
sail,  exchanging 
salutes   with   each 
other." 

In  the  Methodist 
chapel,  on  John 
Street,  still  occu- 
pied for  worship, 
Whitefield  used  to 
"preach  like  a 
lion."  The  Meth- 
odists had  other 

churches  on  Forsyth  and  Duane  streets.  Baptist 
"meeting-houses"  were  erected  on  Gold,  Oliver,  and 
Rose  streets  before  this  century  had  opened,  and 
were  flourishing.  The  Lutherans  built  their  first 
church  at  the  corner  of  William  and  Frankfort  streets, 
and  the  German  Reformed  people  were  housed  on  Nas- 
sau, near  John  Street.  The  pastors  of  these  churches, 
Drs.  Kunze  and  Grose,  were  among  the  group  that 
stood  back  of  President  Washington  when  he  took  the 
oath  of  office.  The  Moravians  had  a  church  on  Ful- 
ton Street,  near  William.  The  Quakers  had  a  meeting- 
house and  burying-ground  on  Little  Queen  Street,  be- 
tween Maiden  Lane  and  Liberty  Street,  and  the  Jews 
built  their  first  synagogue  on  Mill  Street — a  thorough- 


METHODIST   CHURCH,  JOHN   STREET 


196  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

fare  now  blotted  out  by  the  march  of  improvement. 
Their  old  burial- plot  remains,  however.  When  they 
purchased  it  their  idea  was  to  seek  a  sepulchre  far 
away  from  the  living  and  their  haunts,  so  in  1729  they 
purchased  ground  east  of  what  is  now  Chatham 
Square,  between  James  and  Oliver  streets.  Part  of 
the  greensward  and  some  of  the  headstones  carved 
with  Hebrew  characters  still  remain,  walled  in  on  all 
sides  but  one  by  the  high  walls  of  tenement-houses. 

There  were  two  Episcopal  churches  east  of  Broad- 
way when  the  century  was  in  its  teens.  One  was 
Christ  Church,  on  Ann  Street,  afterwards  transferred 
to  Anthony,  now  Worth  Street ;  the  other  was  St. 
George's  Church,  on  Beekman  Street.  The  latter  was 
a  stately  stone  edifice,  in  which  I  have  often  heard 
Dr.  Milnor,  the  rector,  preach.  Once  a  Congressman 
from  Pennsylvania,  the  doctor  was  as  successful  in  the 
ministry  as  he  had  been  in  politics.  In  Zion  Church, 
on  Mott  Street  (now  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  of  the 
Transfiguration),  I  have  also 
attended  services  when  Dr.  Rich- 
ard Cox  was  rector.  He  had 
been  a  Wall  Street  broker,  and, 

LUTHERAN   CHURCH  Hke    G™^     ButlCT,  WES   "  CrOSS- 

William  and  Frankfort  Streets     eyed  "  as  Well  aS  eloquent.       Zion 

Church    had   been    a    Lutheran 

conventicle  until  1804,  when  it  transferred  its  alle- 
giance to  the  Episcopal  ordo.  About  the  same  time, 
also,  the  old  French  Huguenot  congregation  on  Pine 
Street  conformed  to  the  apostolic  succession.  Writh 
a  minister  and  a  church  on  Marketfield  Street  as  early 
as  1687,  they  started  a  burying-ground  ten  years  later, 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  199 

"  far  out  of  town,"  bounded  by  Pine,  Cedar,  and  Nas- 
sau streets.  Here  in  1704  they  built  a  quaint  stone 
church,  fronting  on  Pine  Street,  which  stood  until 
about  sixty  years  ago.  Its  last  Huguenot  preacher 
was  a  queer  little  man,  of  unimpeachable  learning  and 
dulness,  who  modelled  his  sermons  exactly  after  the 
pattern  laid  down  in  Claude  s  Essay  on  Preaching. 
Usually  he  preached  in  French,  but  when  he  resorted 
to  English  the  effect  was  irresistible.  He  always  an- 
nounced in  turn  each  division  of  his  sermon,  saying 
gravely  :  "  Now  we  have  de  oration,"  or,  "  Now  we 
have  de  peroration."  But  his  masterpiece  of  effect- 
iveness was  exhibited  when,  with  a  befittingly  solemn 
face,  he  gave  out  the  thrilling  announcement,  "  And 
now,  my  friends,  we  come  to  de  pa-tet-ic." 

It  is  creditable  to  the  religious  spirit  of  the  Knicker- 
bocker founders  of  New  York  that,  without  making 
any  proclamation  of  their  piety,  they  tolerated  all 
sects,  and  established^  here,  what  the  Puritans  did  not 
leave  "  unstained  "  in  Plymouth  colony,  "freedom  to 
worship  God."  Roger  Williams  and  Mrs.  Anne  Hutch- 
inson  found  a  refuge  here  from  persecution.  Gov- 
ernor Keift  ransomed  the  Jesuit  Fathers  Jogues  and 
Bressani  from  the  Indians,  and  gave  them  free  trans- 
port to  Europe.  Jews  were  admitted  to  citizenship 
on  their  petition  in  1657.  When  the  witchcraft  delu- 
sion was  at  its  height  in  New  England,  the  New  York 
clergy  met  and  resolved  that  "  a  good  name  obtained 
by  a  good  life  should  not  be  lost  by  mere  spectral  ac- 
cusation." At  a  time  when  the  religious  people  oi 
Wethersfield,  Conn.,  were  bent  upon  praising  God  by 
hanging  a  poor  widow,  the  latter  found  hospitable 
refuge  in  Westchester,  and  when  some  of  the  timid 


200  A  TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

politicians  of  that  day  demanded  her  banishment,  the 
Court  of  Assizes  held  in  this  city  ordered  that  she 
"  remaine  in  the  Town  of  Westchester,  or  elsewhere 
in  the  Government  during  her  pleasure."  Thus,  with 
even  balance,  did  the  men  who  built  this  city  dis- 
charge their  duty  to  God  and  man.  And  when 
churches  had  multiplied  on  the  east  side,  and  denomi- 
nations had  grown  rich  and  powerful,  there  was  still 
no  clashing  of  theological  strife.  An  upright,  liberal 
people,  invincible  in  honesty  and  enterprise,  the  old 
New  Yorkers  were  unconsciously  a  model  for  their 
times. 

But  did  I  not  begin  to  say  something  about  the  old 
merchants  of  the  city,  and  then  branch  off  into  the 
churches  ?  What  with  finding  a  brand-new  park  down 
by  the  water-side,  in  the  busiest  and  oldest  haunts  of 
commerce,  and  being  greeted  at  every  turn  by  the 
ghosts  of  departed  churches  and  rifled  burying-grounds, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  spectre  of  our  slaughtered  ship- 
ping, I  have  let  the  old  men  of  business  renown  slip 
by.  Let  us  call  the  roll  of  the  great  merchants  of 
forty  years  ago,  and  how  many  will  answer?  It  is  a 
roster  of  the  dead.  As  to  their  ways  of  dealing,  their 
social  pleasures,  their  habits,  and  their  homes,  we  have 
changed  all  that,  as  Moliere's  quack  doctor  remarks — 
but  is  it  for  the  better? 


A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW   YORK  2OI 


CHAPTER    XVII 

WHEN  HARLEM  WAS  A  VILLAGE  —  FISHING  .  FOR  FLOUNDERS  —  THE 
CANAL  MANIA — AN  ANCIENT  TOLL-BRIDGE— TWENTY  YEARS  AFTER 
—  MOTT'S  CANAL  AND  HIS  HAVEN 

A  FRIEND,  who  is  twenty  years  my  senior,  and  whose 
life  has  been  crowned  with  high  civic  honors,  delights 
to  tell  of  a  stolen  day  spent  on  the  forbidden  banks  of 
Stuyvesant's  Creek,  near  the  foot  of  Fourth  Street 
and  the  East  River,  and  of  the  parental  vengeance 
that  overtook  him  the  next  day,  when  his  mother  dis- 
covered under  his  pillow  a  huge  eel,  which,  with  a  fish- 
erman's pride,  he  could  not  bear  to  part  with,  and  yet, 
as  a  trespasser  in  forbidden  paths,  he  had  not  dared 
to  exhibit.  He  recalls  with  a  sigh  the  pleasure  which 
that  nibble  afforded  him  on  a  summer  day  sixty  years 
ago,  and  in  the  same  way  I  look  back  with  envy  on  a 
long  day  in  June  that  has  impressed  on  my  memory  a 
vivid  picture  of  the  quiet  village  of  Harlem  as  I  first 
saw  it  —  a  placid  hamlet  embowered  in  trees,  set  off 
on  either  side  by  the  thick  woods  that  crowned  the 
heights  beyond  McGowan's  Pass  and  the  elevation  on 
the  Westchester  side  known  as  Buena  Ridge,  and  by 
the  silver  line  of  Harlem  River  and  the  East  River 
waters,  dotted  with  islands,  that  were  broadening  into 
the  Sound.  The  old  Dutch  settlement,  almost  coeval 
with  the  metropolis,  was  a  synonyme  of  repose.  Phy- 
sicians commended  it  as  a  place  inaccessible  to  care. 


204  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK 

There,  it  was  rumored,  natives  and  aliens  alike  slept 
twenty  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four ;  but  this  may 
have  been  slander. 

But  let  me  begin  at  the  beginning.  A  chum  of 
mine,  whose  final  name  was  Smith  (this  was  his  name, 
in  fact,  and  I  stand  ready  to  prove  that  the  Smith 
family  has  ancient  and  honorable  lineage,  and  that 
one  of  the  high  and  mighty  Schepens  of  New  Am- 
sterdam bore  the  name  of  Smith  in  the  Holland  ver- 
nacular), entered  into  a  conspiracy  with  me  to  play 
hookey.  We  longed  for  the  country ;  we  wanted  to 
catch  some  flounders;  we  had  saved  up  sundry  shil- 
lings which  were  burning  holes  in  our  pockets,  and  we 
were  perfectly  agreed  that  we  could  enjoy  ourselves 
in  no  way  so  well  as  in  stealing  a  day  from  school. 
Our  plans  were  laid  in  secrecy,  and  it  nearly  killed  us, 
I  remember,  to  keep  the  conspiracy  to  ourselves,  so 
proud  did  we  feel  of  our  boyish  boldness.  The  day 
we  had  fixed  upon  came  slowly,  but  it  dawned  glori- 
ously, and  at  the  hour  when  Trinity  School  was  open- 
ing with  prayer,  two  of  its  promising  pupils  were  rac- 
ing towards  the  Bowery  to  catch  the  stage  which  left 
the  City  Hall  at  nine  o'clock  for  Harlem.  What  a 
ride  that  was!  Up  beyond  the  junction  of  the  Bow- 
ery with  Fourth  Avenue  all  traces  of  business  were 
left  behind.  The  houses  began  to  stand  apart,  gar- 
dens sprang  up  and  blossomed  between,  with  odor  of 
roses  and  honeysuckles,  clusters  of  trees  became  fre- 
quent as  we  emerged  into  the  old  Boston  Road,  and 
when  we  had  passed  Twenty-third  Street  we  were  fair- 
ly in  the  country.  At  the  left  rose  the  gray  walls  of 
the  great  reservoir  at  Forty-second  Street,  conspicu- 
ous among  scattered  villas;  at  the  right  the  East  River 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  20$ 

kept  flashing  into  view  between  patches  of  forest  trees 
and  beyond  rolling  meadows. 

Yorkville  was  a  somewhat  scattered  hamlet,  possess- 
ing several  churches,  a  number  of  small  stores,  and  a 
large  and  varied  assortment  of  residences.  It  was 
never  very  attractive  to  the  eye.  But  the  view  tow- 
ards the  East  River  was  superb.  The  handsome  res- 
idences on  the  Long  Island  shore  were  conspicuous 
then,  as  were  also  many  fine  old-fashioned  houses  on 
this  side,  which  had  been  in  possession  of  old  New 
York  families  for  generations.  As  a  boy  I  had  a  spe- 
cial interest  in  the  fortifications  of  1812,  which  had 
once  stretched  transversely  across  the  island  from  the 
vicinity  of  Hell  Gate,  and  of  which  the  remains  were 
then  visible  at  many  points.  Between  Yorkville  and 
Harlem  Village,  on  the  line  of  the  Boston  Road,  there 
were  very  few  houses,  and  none  of  special  importance 
except  an  ancient  hostlery,  at  which  we  did  not  stop. 
It  seems  incredible  that  time  should  have  made  such 
changes  in  little  more  than  a  generation,  and  built  up 
a  city  in  solid  strength  through  five  miles  of  what  was 
then  only  rural  scenery;  but  —  ecce  signum!  the  city 
is  there.  The  fields  have  been  swallowed  up.  Villas 
have  disappeared  as  did  Aladdin's  palace. 

When  \ve  got  to  the  canal  at  One  Hundred  and 
Tenth  Street,  we  two  truants,  simultaneously  animat- 
ed by  a  desire  to  explore  this  marvel,  pulled  the  strap 
of  the  stage,  paid  the  driver  a  shilling  each,  and  de- 
scended, glad  of  the  chance  to  stretch  our  weary 
limbs  again.  The  canal  was  filled  up  some  years  ago, 
and  its  site  is  covered  by  houses,  which  must  neces- 
sarily be  rather  damp  in  the  cellar.  At  that  time  it 
extended  from  the  East  River  nearly  to  the  Fifth 


206  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

Avenue  line.  In  part  it  followed  the  line  of  Harlem 
Creek,  a  tributary  to  the  river  of  that  name  at  its 
mouth,  and  was  solidly  built  of  stone,  with  handsome- 
ly constructed  locks.  But  it  was  a  failure.  Every 
once  in  a  while  the  canal  mania  seems  to  have  seized 
upon  New  York.  It  came  naturally  to  the  Dutch 
founders  of  New  Amsterdam.  They  would  have 
been  unhappy  without  a  canal.  At  one  time  they 
contemplated  building  a  whole  net-work  of  water  high- 
ways in  the  sweetly  swampy  region  of  Spuyten  Duy- 
vil  Creek  and  Mosholu  Brook,  a  locality  which  always 
reminded  them  tenderly  of  the  fatherland.  But  they 
contented  themselves  with  the  construction  of  the 
canal  to  which  Broad  Street  owes  its  width,  and 
which  enabled  the  market-men  from  the  Long  Island 
shores  to  run  their  craft  up  as  far  as  Wall  Street. 
There,  on  the  bridges  that  crossed  that  municipal 
ditch,  the  Dutch  burgher  smoked  his  pipe  in  the  early 
twilight,  leaning  on  the  railing  and  thinking  half  re- 
gretfully of  his  old  home.  There,  a  little  later,  Ka- 
trina  looked  down  into  the  placid  water  that  reflected 
nothing  prettier  than  her  face,  which  glowed  with  ten- 
derness at  her  ardent  swain's  repetition  of  the  old,  old 
story,  which  every  strong  man's  heart  thinks  to  be  his 
own  special  discovery. 

At  a  later  day  capital  had  an  idea  of  traversing  the 
young  city  with  a  canal  which  should  extend  from 
Beekman  Swamp  to  the  Collect  Pond,  and  thence,  by 
the  western  outlet  of  that  body  of  water,  through  Ca- 
nal Street  to  the  North  River.  It  proved  to  be  too 
large  a  scheme  to  handle,  however,  and,  after  being 
discussed  for  years,  was  dropped.  But  the  movement 
which  led  to  the  construction  of  the  Harlem  Canal  was 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


207 


really  formidable. 
A  company  was 
formed  in  1827,  en- 
titled the  Harlem 
Canal  Company, 
which  placed  on  the 
market  1 1,000  shares 
of  stock  at  $50  each, 
to  build  a  grand  wa- 
ter highway  "  across 
the  island,  through 
Manhattanville,  and 
along  the  valley  in 


MILL  ROCK   FORT 


208  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

the  vicinity  of  the  North  and  East  rivers."  The  ca- 
nal was  to  be  sixty  feet  in  width,  walled  with  stone  on 
each  side,  with  a  street  fifty  feet  wide  on  each  side, 
and  three  miles  in  length.  I  have  been  curious  enough 
to  look  up  the  dazzling  prospectus  of  this  company, 
from  which  I  quote ;  and  in  reading  it  I  am  afraid  it 
was  slightly  suggestive  of  speculation.  Professor  Ren- 
wick,  of  Columbia  College  (with  what  respect  the  gen- 
eration of  Oldboys  remember  him  !),  was  quoted  as 
computing  that  the  canal  would  furnish  one  hundred 
and  seventy  horse-power  to  those  who  desired  to  avail 
themselves  of  it.  The  company's  representatives  in 
1827  went  into  a  prophecy  of  population,  which  was 
not  fulfilled  as  they  expected.  The  population  of  the 
city  having  been  33,131  in  1790,  and  166,085  in  1825, 
and  being  estimated  at  200,000  in  1827,  they  predicted 
that  it  would  be  doubled  every  fifteen  years,  and 
would  reach  800,000  in  1857,  at  which  time  a  "  dense 
population  "  would  cover  Harlem  plains.  A  curious 
feature  of  the  programme  was  the  offer  of  forty  build- 
ings and  lots  to  be  drawn  in  a  lottery  by  the  subscrib- 
ers. Dazzling  as  was  the  prospectus,  the  project  fail- 
ed. Now,  at  a  later  day,  with  the  population  on  the 
ground,  the  Federal  Government  comes  to  the  front 
to  carry  out  in  the  proposed  ship-canal  through  Har- 
lem River  and  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek  the  old  idea 
which  started  at  the  Collect  Pond,  and  afterwards 
laid  foundations  in  Harlem  Creek.  When  the  great 
ship -canal  is  finally  ready  for  dedication,  the  spirits 
of  the  Dutch  founders  of  New  York,  who,  when 
they  were  safely  landed  on  Manhattan,  first  gave 
thanks  to  God,  and  then  went  to  hunt  for  a  place  to 
dig  a  canal,  may  confidently  be  invoked  to  be  present. 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  209 

But  it  is  time  the  two  runaways  left  the  canal, 
where  they  threw  in  their  lines,  but  got  no  bite,  and 
turned  their  faces  towards  Harlem.  Forty  years  ago 
the  village  was  compact,  clustered  down  close  to  the 
river,  well  shaded  with  trees,  most  charmingly  rural, 
and  apparently  impervious  to  change.  Cows  were 
grazing  in  St.  Andrew's  church-yard,  and  there  was 
more  of  the  same  style  of  four-footed  worshippers  in 
the  yard  around  the  old  Dutch  Church.  Yet  it  all 
looked  natural ;  and  the  pigs  in  the  street  were  taken 
as  a  matter  of  course,  for  even  New  York  had  not 
then  entirely  triumphed  in  her  crusade  against  peri- 
patetic porkers.  Altogether,  it  is  a  pleasant  remem- 
brance which  I  have  of  ancient  Harlem,  even  down 
to  the  remarkable  old  hotel  at  the  river's  edge,  just 
west  of  the  bridge,  where  we  went  to  hire  a  boat  for 
fishing,  and  rented  one  for  half  a  day  for  a  shilling. 
We  didn't  cross  the  bridge ;  it  had  no  charms  for  us. 
I  don't  believe  it  had  charms  for  any  one.  It  was  a 
toll-bridge  ;  but  I  never  felt  entirely  safe  in  trusting 
my  life  to  it.  I  never  remember  it  to  have  been  any- 
thing but  a  ruin,  moss-grown  and  shaky,  yet  it  is  not 
twenty  years  since  it  was  removed.  At  the  time  of 
which  I  write  it  was  in  keeping  with  the  landscape. 
Beyond  the  river  few  houses  were  visible.  The  land 
belonged  to  the  Morris  family.  The  old  homestead 
of  Gouverneur  Morris,  builder  of  the  Constitution, 
friend  of  Washington,  diplomatist  and  Senator,  stood 
near  the  mouth  of  Harlem  River,  with  its  chimneys 
just  visible  above  the  trees.  Not  far  away  was  the 
rural  residence  of  Lewis  Morris,  signer  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  and  just  beyond  rose  the  spire 
of  the  church  the  family  had  erected,  and  beneath 

14 


210  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

which  their  dead  repose  —  St.  Ann's  Church,  Morris- 
ania.  And  up  from  the  bridge  stretched  the  old  Bos- 
ton Road,  rich  in  historic  associations. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1865  that  I  next  fished 
for  flounders  at  the  mouth  of  the  Harlem  River,  and 
through  all  the  intervening  time  I  do  not  think  that  I 
had  set  foot  in  the  old  Dutch  village.  I  found  that 
Harlem  had  grown  in  size  with  the  advent  of  the 
horse-cars,  and  had  put  on  some  fresh  architectural 
frills,  but  the  old  toll-bridge  was  there,  more  rickety 
than  ever,  and  the  old  inn  by  the  river- side,  more 
shabby  and  shambling  than  in  former  years.  The 
flounders  were  there,  but  the  new  generation  of  boat- 
men charged  two  shillings  an  hour  for  their  skiffs,  and 
bait  was  an  extra  item.  Across  the  river  a  scientific 
descendant  of  Tubal  Cain  had  purchased  a  large  plot 
of  ground  from  the  Morris  heirs  and  called  it  after  his 
own  name.  The  old  possessors  of  the  soil  rebelled 
at  the  name,  but  the  new  settler,  whose  foundery  had 
put  life  into  a  sleeping  locality,  set  up  a  painted  sign, 
"  Mott  Haven,"  and  clinched  the  business  by  obtain- 
ing from  Uncle  Sam  the  appointment  of  a  postmas- 
ter.* Like  the  pioneer  patriarchs  from  Holland,  after 

*  A  Westchester  correspondent  writes  that  he  has  heard  that  when 
the  elder  Jordan  L.  Mott  had  received  from  the  hands  of  Gouverneur 
Morris,  "The  Patroon,"  the  title-deeds  of  his  purchase  on  Harlem 
River,  he  inquired  whether  he  might  be  permitted  to  call  his  newly 
acquired  territory  Mott  Haven.  "Yes,"  was  the  answer,  "and  for 
all  that  I  care  you  may  change  the  name  of  the  Harlem  River  to  the 
Jordan,  and  dip  into  it  as  often  as  you  want  to."  Thus  contempora- 
neous history  differs,  and  the  reader  is  left  at  liberty  to  make  his  choice 
between  the  new  version  and  the  old.  The  Patroon  in  question  was 
rough  and  ready,  not  unlike  old  Zachary  Taylor,  whom  he  resembled 
in  personal  appearance,  though  he  was  taller  than  the  general.  He 


A.   TOUR  AROUND    NEW    YORK  211 

Mr.  Mott  had  fairly  got  his  tent  pitched  in  the  plains 
of  Westchester,  he  looked  around  for  a  good  place  to 
build  a  canal,  and  forthwith  dug  one  in  the  rear  of  his 
foundery,  extending  north  from  Harlem  River  to  a 
distance  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile.  Then  he  waited 
for  developments,  which  do  not  yet  seem  to  have 
developed  themselves,  but  may  do  so  in  the  future. 
Meanwhile  the  village  of  Morrisania  had  sprung  up 
into  vigorous  life,  and  following  in  its  wake  came 
other  smaller  settlements,  such  as  Melrose,  Wilton, 
and  North  New  York,  now  become  part  of  the  old 
city  by  annexation,  with  scarce  a  trace  left  of  their 
rural  existence.  From  the  bridge  out  to  Fordham, 
at  that  time,  meandered  at  uncertain  intervals  the 
cars  of  the  famous  "huckleberry  road,"  which  gener- 
ously accommodated  all  except  those  who  were  in  a 
hurry,  and  whose  stockholders  then  walked  by  faith  in 
the  future,  and  not  by  sight  of  the  present.  There 
was  a  foundery  at  Port  Morris,  amid  the  samphire 
beds  that  cluster  around  that  magnificent  roadstead. 
At  Wilton  were  the  homes  of  a  score  of  actors  whom 
Eddy,  the  dramatic  successor  of  Edwin  Forrest,  had 
gathered  about  himself,  and  whose  festival  day  was 
Sunday.  Old  St.  Ann's  Church  still  harbored  the 
aristocracy  of  the  peninsula,  but  streets  had  been  laid 
out  in  its  vicinity,  and  there  was  talk  of  rearing  blocks 
of  brick  and  mortar  thereabouts  and  introducing  new 
social  elements.  On  Buena  Ridge  some  ambitious 
villas  had  already  made  their  appearance,  and  thriv- 
ing mechanics  had  reared  some  score  of  comfortable 

always  led  his  workmen  in  the  field,  scythe  or  sickle  in  hand,  and  few 
could  keep  up  with  him  in  harvesting.  Some  of  his  aristocratic  neigh- 
bors criticised  him,  but  he  cared  nothing  about  it. 


212  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

houses  in  Mott  Haven.  Already  the  famous  old  hos- 
tlery  of  Horace  Ward,  near  the  railroad  bridge,  where 
for  a  dozen  years  the  belles  and  beaus  of  Morrisania 
and  parts  adjacent  had  gathered  for  the  winter  dance, 
was  beginning  to  look  shabby,  and  'more  ambitious 
rivals  in  the  hotel  line  were  talked  of  for  the  upper 
settlements. 

It  was  in  this  transition  state  soon  after  the  close 
of  the  war.  I  had  last  looked  upon  the  place  in  its 
rustic  freshness  when  I  was  a  boy ;  I  came  back  to  it 
a  bronzed  veteran  of  camp  and  field,  and  found  it 
changed,  like  myself.  Yet  it  had  its  charm  for  me 
still.  The  name  of  the  old  Revolutionary  family  still 
lent  a  distinct  historic  flavor  to  the  land.  Off  Port 
Morris  the  British  frigate  Hussar  had  gone  down, 
with  great  treasures  of  gold  on  board,  and  carrying,  it 
was  said,  some  shackled  and  helpless  American  pris- 
oners with  her.  By  day  a  crew  of  divers  were  at  work 
over  the  place  where  the  treasure  was  supposed  to  be 
entombed  in  the  sands,  and  at  night  (so  it  was  stated 
at  quiet  firesides  and  in  awe -struck  whispers)  the 
ghosts  of  the  hapless  followers  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress were  seen  to  wander  about  the  shore  and  clink 
their  chains  to  warn  away  the  treasure -seekers.  Be- 
sides, was  it  not  even  told  that,  on  the  wooded  point 
just  above,  wicked  Captain  Kidd  had  buried  a  portion 
of  his  treasures,  and  placed  a  perpetual  guard  above 
it  by  shooting  one  of  his  sailors  and  burying  him  in 
the  same  trench  with  the  chest  of  gold,  silver,  precious 
stones,  and  the  spoils  of  foreign  cathedrals? 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW  YORK  213 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

THE  FIRST  BRASS  BAND — "THE  LIGHT  GUARD  QUICKSTEP"  —  GEN- 
ERAL TRAINING -DAY — A  FALSTAFFIAN  ARMY — MILITIAMEN  IN 
THEIR  GLORY  —  OUR  CRACK  CORPS 

BEFORE  me  lies  a  worn  and  faded  piece1  of  music, 
"The  Light  Guard  Quickstep,"  composed  and  dedi- 
cated to  Captain  Vincent  byT.  J.  Dodworth.  It  was 
played  in  front  of  the  Astor  House  on  days  of  anni- 
versary parade,  out  of  compliment  to  Mr.  Stetson,  the 
proprietor,  who  was  a  lieutenant  in  this  crack  corps, 
and  who  afterwards  did  good  service  as  a  soldier  of 
the  Union.  To  the  Light  Guards  and  to  the  Dod- 
worths  belong  the  credit  of  organizing  our  first  mili- 
tary bands,  and  they  did  it  handsomely.  When  Jul- 
lien,  the  conductor,  returned  to  England  from  his  trip 
through  this  country,  he  told  the  London  musicians 
that  it  would  not  pay  them  to  come  here,  as  there 
was  a  musician  in  New  York  with  a  whole  houseful 
of  sons  who  had  a  band  equal  to  anything  the  Old 
World  could  produce. 

The  organized  bands  of  music  in  this  city  are  the 
growth  of  the  last  half  century.  Before  that  time  the 
drum  and  fife  did  duty  for  the  militia  when  on  pa- 
rade. I  suppose  that  it  would  be  a  slur  upon  the  av- 
erage intellect  of  the  Legislature  to  give  credence  to 
the  story  told  of  an  honest  member  from  the  lake  re- 
gion, who  had  fought  as  a  soldier  at  Chippewa,  and 


SHAKESPEARE   TAVERN 


who  made  his  maiden  speech  upon  a  bill  which  pro- 
posed to  organize  the  militia  of  the  State.  "  Mr. 
Speaker,"  said  ex-Leftenant  Hayseed,  with  the  con- 
scious pride  of  a  veteran  whose  feet  are  lighted  by 
the  lamp  of  experience,  "  I  am  opposed  to  organs. 
Our  fathers  fit  with  fife  and  drum  at  Saratoga,  and  so 
did  we  at  Chippewa,  and  we  made  the  redcoats  skip 
every  time.  And  besides,  Mr.  Speaker,  them  organs 
would  be  mighty  onhandy  things  to  have  around  in 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  215 

time  of  battle."  Whether  owing  to  this  patriotic  and 
enlightened  stand  or  not,  the  martial  music  of  Bunker 
Hill  and  of  White  Plains,  of  Lundy's  Lane  and  Platts- 
burg,  continued  to  inspire  the  militia  of  this  city  for 
many  a  long  year  after  peace  had  been  declared  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Some 
boys,  who  are  still  more  venerable  than  myself,  have 
told  me  that  the  first  fragmentary  attempts  at  mili- 
tary bands  in  this  city  were  made  by  negro  musicians; 
and  this  is  entirely  credible,  because  the  African  has 
in  his  nature  the  rhythm  and  soul  of  melody,  and 
turns  to  music  as  a  thrush  warbles  in  the  hedge. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  the  original  Tom  Dodworth  (who 
at  this  time  kept  a  small  music  and  fruit  store  on 
Broadway),  was  the  father  of  all  our  great  military 
bands.  His  own  organization,  which  was  first  known 
as  the  National  Brass  Band,  but  afterwards  was  very 
naturally  popularized  into  Dodworth's  Band,  made 
their  first  parade  in  uniform  of  buff  and  blue  at 
the  head  of  the  regiment  known  as  the  Governor's 
Guard,  then  commanded  by  Colonel  Pears,  a  worthy 
warrior  who  had  a  confectionery  store  on  Broadway 
opposite  the  park.  Soon  other  competitors  came  into 
the  field.  Wallace,  whose  orchestra  made  music  at 
Peale's  Museum,  on  Broadway,  between  Murray  and 
Warren  streets,  and  who  had  almost  as  many  sons  as 
Dodworth,  organized  the  New  York  Brass  Band,  and 
he  was  followed  by  Lothian  and  others.  The  war 
with  Mexico  lent  a  fresh  impetus  to  martial  music. 
Then  came  the  war  for  the  Union,  with  its  demand 
for  military  bands  that  should  keep  the  pulse  of  sol- 
dier and  people  at  battle  heat,  and  out  of  this  has 
been  finally  evolved  the  magnificent  martial  music 


2l6  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

that  now  puts  the  soul  of  the  soldier  into  the  militia 
that  march  through  our  streets. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Light  Guard  as  a  crack  corps. 
Its  rival  was  the  City  Guard,  under  command  of  Cap- 
tain McArdle.  The  drill  of  these  two  companies  was 
superb ;  their  social  composition  was  most  exclusive. 
In  the  little  city  of  their  day  not  only  were  the  offi- 
cers men  of  mark,  but  every  private  in  the  rear  ranks 
was  necessarily  somebody.  The  militia  idea  ran  to 
what  might  be  called  small  cliques.  In  point  of  fact, 
they  were  the  clubs  of  the  period.  The  regimental 
bond,  in  all  cases  loose,  was  for  the  most  part  nom- 
inal. The  Cadets  and  the  Hussars,  the  Light  Guard 
and  the  City  Guard,  the  Kosciuskos  and  the  La- 
fayettes,  the  Tompkins  Blues  and  the  Washington 
Greys,  were  the  distinguishing  social  as  well  as  mili- 
tary marks  of  the  men  about  town.  Money  was  pro- 
fusely expended  on  equipments  and  entertainments, 
and  uniforms  were  selected  without  the  slightest  ref- 
erence to  their  compatibility  with  republican  insti- 
tutions. The  City  Guard  adopted  the  magnificent 
dress  of  the  Coldstream  Guards,  and  the  Light  Guard 
donned  the  showy  Austrian  uniform ;  and  so  it  hap- 
pened that  when  Louis  Kossuth  landed  in  our  city 
he  started  back  with  an  involuntary  shudder  at  find- 
ing himself  surrounded  by  the  hated  uniform  of  the 
House  of  Hapsburg,  the  Light  Guard  having  been 
appointed  a  guard  of  honor  as  escort  of  the  Hunga- 
rian patriot. 

The  present  generation  has  much  to  boast  of  in  its 
advance  upon  the  traditions  and  inventions  of  the 
fathers,  but  it  has  forever  missed  some  delights  whose 
memories  are  still  redolent  of  pleasure  to  us  who  are 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  217 

tottering  down  the  western  slope  of  the  hill.  To  the 
boy  of  to-day  the  once  magic  words  "  general  training- 
day"  have  no  meaning.  To  the  Oldboys  they  still 
convey  through  memory's  kaleidoscope  rare  pictures 
of  the  past.  The  "June  training  "  was  a  holiday  wheth- 
er the  school -house  kept  its  doors  open  or  not.  At 
one  time  it  covered  the  space  of  three  days ;  later 
on  a  single  day  was  devoted  to  the  public  instruction 
in  the  manual  of  arms.  And  a  blithesome  day  it  was. 
It  never  rained  during  those  twenty-four  hours.  Very 
early  in  the  sweet  summer  morning  the  victims  and 
votaries  of  Mars  used  to  assemble  on  the  gravelled 
sidewalk  of  St.  John's  Park  and  in  other  convenient 
places,  and  go  through  the  manual  in  awkward  array. 
Short  and  tall,  old  and  young,  shabby  and  well  dress- 
ed, the  motley  crew  were  ranged  in  line,  while  the  in- 
structor in  tactics,  sword  at  side  and  with  rattan  in 
hand,  endeavored  to  switch  them  into  order  and  swear 
into  their  dull  heads  some  idea  of  military  discipline. 
It  was  a  spectacle  for  which  all  New  York  prepared 
itself  for  weeks  in  advance  with  a  broad  grin.  A  virtual 
holiday,  it  always  culminated  in  a  carnival.  When 
the  hour  arrived  for  the  display  of  this  motley  crew 
in  parade,  all  New  York  poured  forth  into  the  streets 
through  which  its  awkward  army  marched,  and  laughed 
until  its  sides  ached. 

In  later  days  our  local  militia  were  attired  in  a 
magnificence  of  style  unequalled  by  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory.  But  in  this  somewhat  primitive  era,  when, 
in  view  of  the  late  war  with  Great  Britain,  every  citi- 
zen was  to  be  deemed  a  possible  soldier,  uniforms 
were  a  rarity.  Each  future  hero  of  the  battle-field 
attired  and  armed  himself  as  seemed  good  in  his  own 


2l8  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

eyes,  and  could  Falstaff  have  reviewed  one  of  those 
June  trainings,  he  would  have  evolved  new  turnings 
to  his  description  of  his  own  scarecrow  regiment. 
None  of  the  militia  of  the  general  training-day  epoch 
were  uniformed  except  the  Light  Guard,  the  City 
Guard,  and  the  Washington  Greys,  of  the  infantry 
line,  a  battery  of  flying  artillery,  and  the  Washington 
Horse  Troop.  These  uniformed  corps  constituted 
the  flank  companies  of  the  main  body  of  military  in 
citizens'  clothes.  Description  is  beggared  as  the 
mind  tries  to  recall  them.  Some  wore  the  old-time 
furred  high  hats,  many  wore  caps,  occasionally  one 
was  bareheaded,  and  at  intervals  the  "beaver"  of  an 
enthusiastic  trainer  was  decorated  at  the  side  with  a 
large  black  feather  and  cockade.  The  taste  in  dress 
was  equally  bizarre.  The  swallow-tail  coat  of  the 
period  was  the  rule,  but  it  was  found  in  company 
with  the  frock-coat,  roundabout,  pea-jacket,  blouse  of 
every  color,  and  the  red  shirt  from  the  Bowery  pre- 
cincts. The  exhibit  of  trousers  was  as  miscellaneous 
in  shape  and  color.  Some  of  the  gallant  crew  had 
the  lower  garment  tucked  in  the  boot-leg,  and  occa- 
sionally one  wore  knee-breeches,  then  not  wholly  dis- 
carded, and  a  few  were  arrayed  as  Indians,  or  in  the 
costume  of  Christmas  fantasticals.  At  rare  intervals 
a  company  appeared  in  regulation  broadcloth  crossed 
with  white  belts,  high  hats,  and  cockades,  and,  being 
armed  uniformly,  presented  for  the  moment  quite  a 
martial  appearance,  which,  however,  served  only  to 
bring  the  rest  of  the  Falstaffian  army  into  ridicule. 
The  armament  of  the  gallant  militia  was  so  varied  as 
te>  be  sublime,  and  could  not  have  failed  to  strike  ter- 
ror into  the  soul  of  any  foreign  spectator.  Some  of 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  219 

the  heroes  of  the  parade  carried  an  old  "  King's  arm  " 
that  had  done  service  in  1812,  or  in  the  Revolutionary 
and  French  wars,  in  the  hands  of  their  fathers  and 
grandfathers ;  others  had  a  more  modern  flintlock  or 
a  fowling-piece.  A  few  had  bayonets,  and  a  few  more 
possessed  belts  and  cartridge-boxes.  Those  who  had 
no  other  weapon  of  offence  armed  themselves  with 
cord-wood  saplings,  canes,  umbrellas,  and  broomsticks, 
carried  proudly  at  shoulder  arms.  Viewed  as  an 
army,  this  host  of  patriots  was  fearfully  and  wonder- 
fully made ;  viewed  as  a  pageant  it  was  sublime. 
"  Sare,"  said  a  polite  French  visitor,  who  had  been 
under  fire  at  Marengo  and  at  Waterloo,  and  had  been 
invited  to  assist  in  reviewing  our  gallant  militia,  "  I 
have  seen  ze  troops  of  ze  grand  Napoleon,  and  ze  sol- 
diers of  ze  terrible  Russe,  and  ze  John  Bull  zat  you 
make  run,  sare,  but  I  nevare  see  such  troops  as  zese, 
sare — nevare !" 

The  fun  of  training-day  was  phenomenal,  but  it  had 
to  be  paid  for.  After  the  glory  of  the  review  came 
the  terrors  of  the  court-martial.  In  a  few  weeks  those 
who  had  failed  to  turn  out  for  inspection,  as  by  law 
directed,  and  those  who  had  not  equipped  themselves 
in  such  martial  array  as  the  statute  required,  found 
themselves  standing  in  the  impressive  presence  of  a 
circle  of  epauletted  officers,  whose  sternness  was  equal- 
led only  by  the  amount  of  gold -lace  that  bedizened 
them.  Then  woe  befell  the  unlucky  wight  who  had 
hoped  to  escape  detection  as  an  artful  dodger  of  his 
duty,  or  the  careless  trainer,  whose  bayonet,  cartridge- 
box,  or  musket  had  not  materialized  itself  to  the  in- 
spector's eye.  All  delinquents  were  incontinently 
fined  in  sums  varying  from  25  cents  to  $5,  and  those 


220  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

who  had  not  the  money  to  pay  were  promptly  filed  off 
under  guard  and  consigned  to  the  iron  grasp  of  Mar- 
shal Davids.  The  unhappy  defender  of  his  country's 
honor  had  no  alternative  but  to  furnish  the  hard  cash, 
or  to  rest  his  martial  bones  in  Eldridge  Street  Jail 
until  such  time  as  his  fine  had  been  liquidated,  at  the 
rate  of  one  dollar  for  each  day  of  imprisonment.  'Twas 
ever  thus,  that  those  who  would  dance  must  pay  the 
piper. 

The  military  system  of  the  city  and  State  was  a  far- 
reaching  one  in  the  days  when  I  first  took  delight  in 
stealing  out  to  follow  a  parade  through  the  streets.  It 
will  surprise  the  miltiaman  of  to-day  to  learn  that  Colo- 
nel Tappan  commanded  the  Two  Hundred  and  Thir- 
ty-sixth Regiment  of  Infantry,  and  that  the  late  Colonel 
Devoe  was  commandant  of  the  Two  Hundred  and 
Sixty-ninth  Regiment.  One  reads  the  history  of  gen- 
eral training -day  in  the  record  of  Maj.-gen.  James  I. 
Jones,  who  commanded  the  Thirteenth  Division  of  the 
State  militia,  composed  of  the  Fifty-ninth  and  Sixty- 
third  Brigades  of  Infantry.  In  the  latter  command 
were  the  Seventy-fifth  Regiment,  under  command  of 
Col.  Frederick  S.  Boyd;  Two  Hundred  and  Forty- 
ninth  Regiment,  Col.  George  Dixey ;  Two  Hundred 
and  Fifty- eighth  Regiment,  Col.  John  P.  Wake;  and 
Two  Hundred  and  Sixty-ninth,  Colonel  Devoe.  Brig- 
adier-general Hunt  was  in  command  of  the  New  York 
State  artillery,  and  the  First  Brigade,  located  here, 
was  composed  of  the  Second  Regiment,  Governor's 
Guards,  Colonel  Pears;  Ninth  Regiment,  National 
Cadets,  Colonel  Slipper;  Twenty -seventh  Regiment, 
National  Guard  (present  Seventh  Regiment),  Colonel 
Jones.  This  formidable  list  of  our  local  defenders 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  223 

gives  one  the  idea  of  an  army  as  great  as  that  which 
the  war  for  the  Union  called  into  existence.  But  it 
was  a  host  on  paper,  for  the  most  part,  and  experience 
demonstrated  the  advisability  of  adopting  a  policy  of 
enlistment  in  later  years. 

When  Major-general  Macomb  rode  at  the  head  of 
New  York's  martial  array,  the  brigadiers  were  Lloyd, 
Kiersted,  Sandford,  and  Morris.  But  my  eyes  did  not 
take  in  the  personality  of  the  warriors  until  such  time 
as  Brigadier-general  Sandford  had  been  promoted  to 
the  dignity  of  a  major-general,  and  the  brigadiers 
whom  I  can  personally  recall  are  Generals  Storms, 
Hall,  and  Morris — the  saddle-maker,  the  music-deal- 
er, and  the  poet.  This  quartet  of  soldiers  were  men 
whom  I  envied  in  my  youth.  Their  cocked  hats 
and  glittering  epaulets,  their  prancing  steeds  and 
clanking  sabres,  filled  my  soul  with  yearnings  after  the 
battle-field.  As  for  the  major-general,  he  was  the  god 
Mars  incarnate.  How  eagerly  I  always  waited  for  his 
wild  dash  down  the  street  at  the  head  of  a  blazing 
constellation  of  gold-laced  aides  and  outriders.  When, 
towards  mid-day,  the  command  to  march  was  given,  it 
was  a  great  day  in  New  York.  No  such  martial  sight 
is  vouchsafed  in  these  degenerate  days.  In  the  ranks 
of  the  soldiers  of  that  period  marched  the  warriors  of 
every  nation  under  the  sun.  Throughout  many  regi- 
ments the  uniforms  of  no  two  companies  were  the 
same,  and  the  effect  was  dazzling.  Looking  from  an 
upper  balcony,  one  caught  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the 
crimson  coats  of  England,  the  green  of  Italy,  the 
plaids  of  Scotland,  the  buff  and  blue  of  the  old  Con- 
tinentals, the  blue  and  red  of  France,  the  white  coats 
of  Austria,  the  bizarre  uniforms  of  Poland  and  Hun- 


224  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

gary,  and  martial  costumes  of  all  colors,  that  seemed 
to  be  composed  for  the  occasion.  Verily,  and  in  un- 
exaggerated  fact,  the  magnificent  monarch  who  daz- 
zled the  eyes  of  the  maiden  Queen  of  Sheba  was  not 
arrayed  like  one  of  these ! 

As  I  write  of  these  glories  of  the  militiamen  of 
other  days,  I  am  reminded  of  the  day  when  my  own 
regiment  marched  down  Broadway  en  route  to  the 
front,  amid  the  clapping  of  hands,  and  waving  of  hand- 
kerchiefs, and  cheers  of  assembled  multitudes,  and 
under  escort  of  one  of  the  commands  of  which  men- 
tion has  been  made — the  old  Second  Regiment.  The 
three  months'  term  for  which  we  had  enlisted  was 
prolonged  to  two  years,  and  to  many  of  my  comrades 
this  meant  death  on  the  field  of  battle,  to  others 
wounds  and  imprisonment,  and  to  all  long  months  in 
camp  and  field  that  aged  us  as  years  age  men  else- 
where. We  marched  away  to  the  burst  of  martial 
music,  and  with  our  full  military  band.  When  we 
came  back  it  was  with  tattered  remnants  of  flags,  and 
with  not  more  than  100  of  the  800  who  had  marched 
away.  To  the  sound  of  fife  and  drum  the  bronzed 
and  bearded  men  who  had  gone  out  as  rosy-cheeked 
youth  marched  up  Broadway,  dusty,  weary,  but  crowned 
with  the  unseen  laurels  of  patriotism.  So  had  my  fa- 
thers marched  back  from  Lundy's  Lane  and  Niagara, 
from  Monmouth  and  Stillwater.  I  thought  of  it  then 
with  pride.  I  write  it  now  with  glad  and  thankful 
pen. 


A   TOUR    AROUND    NEW   YORK  225 


CHAPTER    XIX 

COLONIAL  FOOTPRINTS— HAUNTS  OF  WASHINGTON  AND  HOWE — COUN- 
TRY-SEAT OF  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON — EAST  SIDE  JOURNEYINGS— 
OLD  DAYS  IN  YORKVILLE  AND  HARLEM — THE  BEEKMAN  MANSION 

GOING!     Going!     Gone! 

This  has  been  the  croak  of  the  raven  of  specula- 
tion over  many  an  old  colonial  mansion  that  was 
stately  even  in  its  decay,  but  lives  now  only  in  mem- 
ory. The  homes  of  a  former  century  that  bore  the 
names  of  Lispenard,  Warren,  Kip,  De  Lancey,  Beek- 
man,  Murray,  and  many  another  citizen  of  high  re- 
pute in  ancient  annals  can  be  found  now  only  on 
maps  that  are  yellow  with  age.  The  prim  hedges  of 
box,  the  groves  of  locust-trees  that  were  so  fragrant 
in  the  spring-time,  the  gardens  filled  with  hollyhocks 
and  poppies  and  white  roses,  with  feverfew  and  sage 
and  all  warrantable  herbs,  the  summer  beauty  of  beech 
and  elm  and  tulip  tree,  have  vanished  with  the  people 
who  moved  amid  them  and  loved  them.  Into  the 
velvet  of  the  lawn  the  iron  tire  of  the  contractor's 
chariot,  synonyme  of  the  material  progress  of  the 
age,  has  carved  its  cruel  way,  and  a  row  of  tenement- 
houses  follows  the  line  of  broad  piazzas.  It  seems  a 
pity  that  the  quaint  old  mantel-piece,  whose  tiles  told 
to  the  young  aristocrats  of  a  hundred  years  ago  the 
story  of  Elijah,  the  Prodigal  Son,  or  Jonah,  with  such 
serene  violation  of  the  laws  of  perspective ;  the  shab- 


226 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


by  old  mirrors  that  reached  from  ceiling  to  floor,  and 
that  still  told  the  glory  of  the  brave  men  and  fair 
women  whose  forms  once  flashed  before  them  ;  the 

broad   stair- 
cases  guard- 
ed by  tall  ma- 
hogany  bal- 
ustrades,   all 
black   with 
age,  up  which 
swept      the 
belles    of    co- 
lonial   New 
York,  passing 
fair,  in  gowns 
of   India-silk,   satin 
petticoats,    high- 
heeled  shoes,  patch- 
es   and     powder, 
under  escort  of  gen- 
tlemen   who     were 
elegant  in  velvet  of 

APTHORPE  MANSION,  BLooMiNGDALE        all  colors,  brocaded 

waistcoats,    lace 

neck-cloths,  silken  stockings,  and  diamond  buckles,  but 
who  were  ever  ready  to  draw  the  rapier  in  defence  of 
honor — it  seems  a  pity,  I  say,  that  these  should  van- 
ish under  the  touch  of  the  auctioneer's  hammer.  Yet, 
perhaps,  it  is  better  so;  better  that  the  old  home- 
stead should  be  torn  down  by  an  unknown  vandal 
than  it  should  linger  to  its  decay  in  stage  after  stage 
of  helpless,  hopeless  ruin.  Certainly  if  the  old  man- 
sion on  the  Battery  that  was  consecrated  in  history 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  22J 

by  Washington's  presence  is  razed  by  the  same  hand 
that  rears  a  monument  to  the  most  despicable  of 
English  spies,  it  might  be  well  to  prevent  a  repetition 
of  the  sacrilege  by  levelling  all  our  existing  colonial 
monuments  to  the  ground.  Welcome  the  hammer  of 
the  auctioneer  sooner  than  the  touch  of  the  speculat- 
or in  patriotism,  or  the  slow  lapse  into  architectural 
senility  which  would  turn  the  banqueting-hall  of  Ear) 
Cornwallis  into  a  hen-roost. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  I  visited  the  old  Apthorpe 
Mansion  that  used  to  face  the  Hudson  River  and  the 
Bloomingdale  Road,  but  now  is  hemmed  in  by  Ninth 
and  Tenth  avenues  at  Ninety- first  Street,  and  is 
threatened  on  all  sides  by  the  bewildering  touch  of 
improvement.  The  full  glory  of  the  warm  April  sun 
lay  upon  the  old  place.  Yet,  though  it  was  a  centre 
of  desolation,  there  was  a  remnant  of  individual  maj- 
esty in  the  dwelling  and  its  surroundings.  No  one 
could  mistake  its  birth  for  other  than  colonial.  The 
great  pillars  from  roof  to  porch,  the  stately  gables 
over  door  and  window,  the  broad  reception -hall  ex- 
tending from  front  to  rear,  the  height  of  ceilings 
above  and  below,  were  all  proof  of  antiquity  clear 
as  print  to  the  eye.  If  more  evidence  was  needed,  in- 
side were  the  antique  dining-room,  with  walls  and 
mantel-piece  and  ceiling  of  oak,  now  blackened  by 
age,  whose  great  panels  and  joists  were  imported  from 
England  in  the  days  of  colonial  splendor  that  pre- 
ceded the  Revolution.  Outside  was  the  ample  lawn 
stretching  down  towards  the  river,  dotted  with  groves 
of  elms,  locusts,  button -wood,  and  ancient  cherry — 
great  trees  that  required  more  than  one  man  to 
span  their  girth,  beneath  whose  shade  half  a  dozen 


228  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

generations  of  youth  and  beauty  had  disported  them- 
selves. 

As  I  stood  alone  upon  the  porch  in  the  afternoon 
sun,  and  looked  up  the  river  towards  the  Palisades 
and  down  towards  Castle  Point,  the  air  was  thick 
with  the  shadows  that  trooped  up  from  the  past. 
There  had  been  nothing  romantic  in  the  ride  on  the 
elevated  train ;  there  was  no  sentiment  in  the  dilapi- 
dated surroundings;  and  the  sunshine  was  the  deadly 
foe  of  anything  like  an  apparition.  Yet  it  seemed  to 
me  as  I  stood  there  as  if  I  had  lived  another  life,  in 
which  the  old  mansion,  not  then  weather-beaten  as 
now,  but  stately  and  untarnished,  and  set  in  a  brill- 
iant garland  of  shrubs  and  flowers,  had  played  a  prom- 
inent part.  I  could  hear  close  at  hand  the  rustle  of 
silken  dresses  and  the  clank  of  swords  —  the  merry 
peal  of  laughter  and  the  jingle  of  the  wine-glass — and 
not  far  distant  I  could  hear  the  note  of  hurried  prep- 
aration and  the  tramp  of  departing  columns.  Some 
one  in  buff  and  blue  —  a  stalwart  young  officer  in 
whose  soul  I  lived — bade  silent  and  sad  adieu  to  a 
fair  young  girl  whose  sun-brown  curls  rippled  down 
her  neck  and  coquetted  with  her  dimpled  shoulders; 
and  I  could  swear  that  I  had  looked  into  her  eyes  in 
some  state  of  my  existence  and  madly  loved  her.  Yet 
I — no,  he — rode  away  with  the  rear-guard,  catching 
sight,  last  of  all,  of  a  fluttering  handkerchief  between 
the  locust  branches,  and  of  a  little,  little  hand. 

It  was  an  eerie  experience,  and  yet  perfectly  real 
throughout.  I  do  not  know  but  that  it  may  have  been 
I  who  really  carried  on  that  desperate  flirtation.  Per- 
haps I  was  married  afterwards  without  my  own  knowl- 
edge. It  may  be  that  I  was  my  own  great-grandfa- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  229 

ther,  who  rode  away  among  the  Continental  soldiers 
on  that  day.  But  I  fear  that  I  may  be  getting  out 
of  my  own  depth  in  thus  attempting  to  philosophize 
— and  my  grandmother  would  have  told  me  that  it 
served  me  right  for  travelling  into  the  country  on 
Sunday.  One  thing  I  do  know  —  that  I  shall  not 
cavil  again  at  the  theory  of  a  state  of  pre-existence, 
for  I  solemnly  aver  that  it  seemed  perfectly  natural 
to  see  a  line  of  scarlet  soldiery  stretching  across  the 
Bloomingdale  road,  and  to  prepare  to  hold  them  in 
check.  For  it  was  at  this  old  mansion  that  Lord 
Howe  had  his  headquarters  when  the  Connecticut 
Rangers  and  the  Virginia  Riflemen,  under  Leitch  and 
Knowlton  (both  of  whom  were  slain),  sent  the  British 
column,  headed  by  the  indomitable  Highlanders,  fly- 
ing across  Harlem  Plain  down  towards  this  point  and 
through  McGowan's  Pass.  Here  Lord  Howe  re- 
mained for  some  days  and  nursed  his  wounded  honor, 
and  Clinton  and  Carleton  and  Andre  also  led  the 
minuet  in  these  rooms  and  gave  royalist  belles  a  taste 
of  the  court  splendors  of  King  George.  Whether 
this  historic  house  is  to  be  destroyed  or  to  linger  yet 
a  little  longer  will  be  determined  by  the  market  value 
of  the  lots  on  which  it  stands.* 

The  mansion  which  Washington  occupied  as  his 
headquarters  on  the  day  of  the  victory  at  Harlem 
Plains  —  the  Roger  Morris  house  —  stands  on  the 
heights  that  overlook  Harlem  River,  a  little  below 

*  The  Apthorpe  mansion,  long  degraded  to  a  beer-garden,  has  dis- 
appeared (1892).  Its  site  will  soon  be  covered  by  "flats."  The  fine 
cluster  of  buildings  for  the  new  St.  Agnes'  Chapel  of  Trinity  Parish — 
church,  clergy-house,  choir  and  schoolrooms,  etc. — stands  upon  a  portion 
of  the  old  Apthorpe  ground. 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 


the  High  Bridge.     It  always  seemed  to  me  a  strange 
chance  that  led  the  American  general  to   this  roof. 

The  loyalist  owner  of 
the  property  had  been 
Washington's  old  com- 
panion-in-arms, and  his 
wife  was  the  beautiful 
Mary  Phillipse,  whom 


THE  JUMEL  MANSION 


the  provincial  Colonel  Washington,  visiting  New  York 
after  the  defeat  of  Braddock  and  his  own  brilliant 
achievements  on  the  unfortunate  field  of  Fort  Du 
Quesne,  had  wooed  in  vain.  It  will  be  a  pity  if  no 
one  comes  forward  to  purchase  and  preserve  the  house 
for  its  historical  association,  for  as  from  no  point  on 
the  Island  of  Manhattan  can  so  commanding  a  view 
be  obtained,  so  none  of  the  old  colonial  homesteads 
has  so  many  and  varied  historical  associations.  Built 
of  bricks  brought  from  Holland,  the  house  has  been  a 
landmark  from  the  day  of  its  completion.  General 
Washington  planned  his  battles  in  its  library,  and  here 
also  he  held  consultations  with  the  chiefs  of  the  Indian 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  231 

tribes,  and  gave  his  secret  instructions  to  the  "  spy  of 
the  neutral  ground."  The  estate  was  confiscated  after 
the  Revolution,  and  then  it  was  purchased  by  John 
Jacob  Astor,  who  made  half  a  million  dollars  by  his 
speculation.  He  sold  the  house  to  Stephen  Jumel, 
who  filled  the  rooms  with  costly  furniture  that  was 
part  of  the  spoils  of  French  palaces,  and  embellished 
the  grounds  with  rare  trees  and  shrubs.  Madame 
Jumel  in  her  widowhood  married  Aaron  Burr,  but 
this  alliance  with  the  rude,  unlettered  woman  was  of 
short  duration,  and  he  left  her  in  disgust  and  sought 
seclusion  on  Staten  Island.  Then  for  years  the  old 
woman  lived  alone,  a  terror  to  her  servants  and 
shunned  by  her  neighbors,  and  left  the  legacy  of  a 
long  lawsuit  to  her  relatives.  The  estate  has  been 
shorn  of  its  original  dimensions  and  much  of  its  old 
beauty,  but  the  old  house  remains,  as  solid  and  sub- 
stantial as  when  first  built,  and,  standing  on  its  piazza, 
one  sees  not  only  the  lower  city  and  Brooklyn  Bridge, 
but  seven  counties  in  two  different  States,  three  rivers. 
Long  Island  Sound,  the  bay,  and,  in  a  clear  atmos- 
phere, a  glimpse  of  the  distant  ocean.*  It  was  while 
Washington  made  this  brief  sojourn  at  the  Morris 
mansion  that  he  had  his  attention  called  to  Alexan- 
der Hamilton.  During  his  inspection  of  the  works 
thrown  up  at  Harlem  for  the  protection  of  his  army, 


*  The  Jumel  mansion  is  in  sympathetic  ownership  and  occupancy 
(1892),  and  there  is  design  of  purchasing  it  for  perpetual  preservation 
by  an  association.  The  ground-plan  of  this  stately  old  house  (which 
bears  the  date  1758  upon  the  keystone  of  an  arch  in  the  main  hall)  is  a 
square,  connected  by  a  narrower  parallelogram  with  an  octagon  containing 
the  room  of  state.  The  owners  say  that  from  its  roof  thirteen  counties 
are  to  be  seen. — L. 


232  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

the  American  commander  was  struck  by  the  skill  dis- 
played in  the  arrangement  and  disposition  of  a  cer- 
tain fort  which  was  in  charge  of  a  young  captain  of 
artillery.  On  making  inquiry  it  turned  out  that  the 
name  of  the  officer  in  question  was  Alexander  Ham- 
ilton (then  a  youth  of  twenty),  of  whom  General 
Greene  had  previously  spoken  to  his  superior  in  terms 
of  high  praise.  Washington  at  once  sought  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  youth,  and  there  and  then  the 
friendship  began  which  linked  their  lives  and  their 
fame  together. 

Within  sight  of  the  fort  he  had  built,  and  the  field 
upon  which  he  had  fought,  and  within  a  little  more 
than  a  mile  from  the  Morris  mansion,  General  Hamil- 
ton afterwards  selected  the  site  for  his  suburban  home 
— the  Grange.  This  beautiful  structure,  one  of  the 
finest  remaining  specimens  of  the  classic  style  of  archi- 
tecture that  our  fathers  fancied,  is  situated  north  of 
One  Hundred  and  Fortieth  Street  and  east  of  Tenth 
Avenue.  Its  site,  selected  by  Hamilton,  cannot  be 
excelled  for  picturesqueness.  Magnificent  forest  trees 
shade  the  ample  grounds,  and  near  the  house  is  a 
cluster  of  thirteen  trees  that  Hamilton  planted  with 
his  own  hand  to  symbolize  the  original  thirteen  States 
of  the  Union.  They  were  in  serious  danger  of  being 
uprooted  by  the  new  aqueduct,  which  passes  through 
the  grounds,  but  have  happily  escaped.  How  long 
they  will  continue  to  stand  is  problematical.  Even 
now  it  is  feared  that  the  house  is  doomed  to  destruc- 
tion. The  land  is  in  the  market,  and  unless  a  special 
effort  is  made  to  secure  its  preservation,  it  will  proba- 
bly be  taken  down  and  an  ambitious  modern  villa  will 
occupy  its  site.  Perhaps  Hamilton  Terrace,  with  its 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  233 

proposed  beautiful  park,  its  lawns  and  tasteful  dwell- 
ings, will  be  an  improvement  upon  the  dignified  old 
homestead,  the  natural  glory  of  the  old  forest  land- 
scape, and  the  grove  of  thirteen  trees  which  emblazon 
history  in  their  tints ;  but  we  who  are  conservatives 
from  a  former  generation  will  hardly  think  so.* 

Speaking  of  old  buildings  reminds  me  that  I  have 
received  a  friendly  criticism,  by  post,  for  not  giving 
more  details  of  the  Third  Avenue,  through  which  I 
passed  on  my  stolen  fishing  excursion  of  forty  years 
ago.  At  that  time,  after  leaving  Astor  Place,  there 
was  nothing  compact  in  the  way  of  buildings  until 
we  reached  Bull's  Head  Village,  which  extended  from 
Second  to  Fourth  avenues  and  from  Twenty-third  to 


THE    HAMILTON   HOUSE 


Twenty- seventh  streets.  Here  was  the  great  cattle 
mart  of  the  city,  and  here  it  had  been  for  twenty 
years.  But  soon  after  it  was  removed  to  Forty-second 

*  See  note  in  Chapter  xxvi.,  p.  330. — L. 


234  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

Street,  and  thence  to  Ninety-fourth  Street,  from  which 
point  it  was  transferred  to  the  Jersey  shore  a  few 
years  since.  The  people  of  old  Bull's  Head  Village 
worshipped  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  now  standing 
in  Twenty-second  Street  west  of  Third  Avenue  ;  at 
the  Twenty-seventh  Street  Methodist  Church,  and  at 
the  little  Episcopal  Chapel  of  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
on  the  east  side  of  Fourth  Avenue,  near  Twenty-third 
Street,  which  was  demolished  thirty  years  ago  on  the 
completion  of  the  fine  church  of  the  same  name  at 
Lexington  Avenue  and  Thirty-fifth  Street. 

After  leaving  Twenty -seventh  Street  and  Third, 
Avenue  the  traveller  was  in  the  country.  There  was 
no  other  settlement  until  Yorkville  was  reached,  nearly 
two  miles  beyond.  Scattered  farm-houses,  distant  vil- 
las, green  fields,  and  bits  of  woodland  made  up  the 
landscape.  The  commodious  country-seat  of  Anson 
G.  Phelps  on  the  East  River  was  reached  from  Twenty- 
seventh  Street.  In  the  vicinity  of  Thirty -second 
Street  the  inhabitants  imported  from  the  river  the 
name  of  Kip's  Bay,  and  lent  it  to  the  Thompson  and 
Henderson  homesteads  thereabout,  and  to  the  grocery 
store  that  was  for  many  years  owned  and  conducted 
by  a  brother  of  Peter  Cooper,  a  very  worthy  gentle- 
man, who  died  not  long  ago,  having  passed  his  nine- 
tieth birthday.  Sunfish  Pond,  famous  for  its  eels,  as 
well  as  sunfish  and  flounders,  occupied  the  site  of  the 
Fourth  Avenue  stables  at  Thirty -second  Street,  and 
extended  westward  to  Madison  Avenue.  From  this 
pond  a  brook  ran  to  the  East  River,  following  very 
nearly  the  line  of  Thirty-second  Street.  The  brook 
was  almost  dry  in  summer,  but,  in  times  of  freshets,  it 
overflowed  its  banks  and  spread  from  the  foot  of 


THE    GATES   WEEPING   WILLOW,   22D    STREET    AND    3D    AVENUE 


Rose  Hill  at  the  South  to  Murray  Hill  on  the  north. 
When  it  was  in  a  desperately  angry  mood,  the  resi- 
dents of  houses  that  are  still  standing  could  reach  the 
avenue  only  in  boats. 

The  residence  of  Peter  Cooper — of  rare  and  blessed 
memory  always  in  this  city  of  ours — stood  then  and 
still  stands  at  the  south-west  corner  of  Fourth  Avenue 
and  Twenty- eighth  Street.  It  was  a  plain  and  un- 
pretending structure,  and  yet  substantial  withal,  as 


236  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

befitted  its  builder.  In  front  of  his  residence  the 
Eastern  Post  Road  passed  to  nearly  the  present  line 
of  Lexington  Avenue,  which  it  continued  to  follow 
until  near  Forty-second  Street,  when  it  joined  Third 
Avenue.  On  its  western  side  stood  several  large  and 
fine  residences  owned  by  opulent  Knickerbockers,  em- 
bowered in  gardens,  half  hidden  by  trees,  and  buried 
in  deep  lawns — the  realization  to  weary  travellers  of 
an  earthly  paradise.  On  Third  Avenue  there  were 
no  dwellings  until  we  reached  the  point  at  which  the 
old  "  Cato  "  Road  stretched  out  towards  Second  Avenue 
from  Forty-third  Street  to  Fifty-first,  and  thence  cir- 
cled around  to  the  "  Turtle  Bay  "  region  and  the  fa- 
mous hostlery  kept  by  Cato.  Tradition  does  not  tell 
whether  he  had  any  other  name  besides  Cato.  A 
great  cloud  of  witnesses,  principally  gray-haired,  still 
survive  to  testify  that  his  dinners  and  suppers  were 
simply  incomparable.  Everybody  who  owned  or  could 
hire  a  "  rig  "  drove  out  there  at  least  once  a  week  and 
feasted  himself.  Burnham,  on  the  Bloomingdale  Road 
at  Seventy-fourth  Street,  was  Cato's  only  rival,  but  a 
formidable  one. 

At  Forty-ninth  Street  and  Third  Avenue  was  a  tiny 
hamlet  known  as  Odellville,  which  owed  its  patronymic 
to  Mr.  Odell,  who  kept  a  country  tavern  at  the  corner 
first  named,  and  with  whom  life  agreed  so  well  that 
he  nearly  lived  out  a  century.  Just  across  Third 
Avenue  and  above  Fiftieth  Street  was  the  old  potter's 
field,  which  next  followed  those  of  Washington  and 
Madison  squares ;  and,  strange  to  say,  not  far  from 
its  northern  borders  was  a  spring  of  soft,  pure  water 
which  was  extensively  carried  away  in  carts  to  supply 
the  distant  city.  This  water  readily  commanded  two 


A   TOUR   AROUND  NEW   YORK 


237 


cents  a  pail,  and  its  sale  was  not  discontinued  until 
some  time  after  the  introduction  of  Croton  water — 
many  old  people  having  a  preference  for  it  as  well  as 
a  decided  distaste  for  new-fangled  aqueducts  and 
water  brought  in  pipes.  Between  Odellville  and  the 
Five -mile  public -house  at  Seventy -second  Street 
there  were  a  few  scattered  country-houses,  many 
fields,  some  considerable  forest  tracts,  and  then  came 
the  village  of  Yorkville.  Half  a  century  ago  this  was 
quite  an  extensive  settlement,  reaching  from  Eighty- 
third  to  Eighty-eighth  streets,  compactly  built  on  both 
sides  of  Third  Avenue  and  to  Second  and  Fourth 
avenues  on  the  intersecting  streets.  The  village  must 


VAN  DEN  HEUVEL  (AFTERWARDS  "  BURNHAM'S")  HOUSE. 


238  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

have  numbered  more  than  a  hundred  houses,  with 
three  or  four  churches  and  a  dozen  stores.  It  never 
was  a  pretty  place,  but  down  towards  the  East  River, 
and  facing  that  picturesque  stream,  were  some  superb 
country  residences  in  those  days — such  as  the  Scher- 
merhorn  mansion  at  the  foot  of  Seventy-third  Street, 
and  the  Riker  homestead  at  the  foot  of  Seventy-fifth 
Street.  Elegant  lawns  stretched  down  to  the  river- 
front, and  from  the  ample  piazzas  the  scene  was  a 
panorama  of  beauty. 

The  Six-mile  Tavern  awaited  the  thirsty  pilgrim  at 
the  corner  of  Ninety-seventh  Street  and  Third  Avenue. 
Our  excellent  forefathers  always  placed  a  mile-stone 
and  a  tavern  together,  by  a  gracious  instinct  which 
held  that  the  dust  of  which  our  mortality  is  composed 
needed  moistening  at  the  end  of  a  mile's  march.  It 
was  a  good  doctrine  to  stick  to.  The  newest  im- 
ported idea  allows  three  saloons  upon  a  single  block 
on  our  busiest  avenues.  But  our  progenitors  were  be- 
hind the  times — good  men,  but  they  did  not  under- 
stand human  nature.  They  believed  in  a  man  owning 
as  much  land  as  he  could  manage  comfortably,  and 
only  taking  as  much  drink  as  was  good  for  him.  The 
new  doctrinaires  deny  man's  right  to  own  any  land, 
and  insist  that  he  shall  impose  no  restriction  on  his 
own  or  his  neighbor's  right  to  drink  all  that  he  wishes. 
Thus  we  live  and  learn.  But  this  is  a  digression. 
From  the  Six-mile  Tavern  we  begin  to  descend  the 
valley  towards  Harlem.  It  is  a  rough  road.  To  the 
left  is  an  abrupt  stone  ledge  that  runs  up  into  Mc- 
Gowan's  Pass ;  to  the  right  are  the  marshes  of  Harlem 
Commons,  through  which  the  East  River  extends  up 
to  the  avenue  for  the  distance  of  a  mile.  There  was 


^ 

FORT   CLINTON,    AT   M'GOWAN's   PASS 

not  a  house  to  be  seen  until  One  Hundred  and  Second 
Street  was  reached,  at  which  point  a  lane  turned  down 
to  the  celebrated  Red  House  at  First  Avenue  and 
One  Hundred  and  Sixth  Street,  where  a  trotting 
course  called  together  the  owners  of  fast  horses,  es- 
pecially on  Sunday  afternoons. 

At  One  Hundred  and  Sixth  Street  the  canal 
crossed  the  road,  and  beyond  this  point  and  up  to 
One  Hundred  and  Twentieth  Street  there  were  a  few 
scattered  houses,  mostly  detached,  but  here  was  again 
quite  a  settlement.  Many  of  the  houses  still  stand, 
transformed  into  places  of  business.  At  One  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty-fifth  Street  was  a  tavern  which  now 
figures  as  a  drug-store,  and  from  this  point  the  village 
of  Harlem  began.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  advent  of 
the  horse -cars,  Harlem  contained  some  two  hundred 
houses,  scattered  over  nearly  a  mile  square,  from  Fifth 


240 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 


Avenue  to  the  East  River.  Among  the  more  notable 
residences  were  those  of  Dr.  Quackenbush,  Judge  In- 
graham,  Isaac  Adriance,  Charles  Henry  Hall,  Andrew 
McGowan,  and  John  Van  Voorhis.  At  this  time  One 
Hundred  and  Twenty-ninth  Street  was  the  only  paved 
thoroughfare  north  of  Astor  Place.  Mr.  Hall  was  a 
city  Alderman  in  1832,  and  was  one  of  a  committee 
appointed  during  the  prevalence  of  the  cholera  to 
visit  Quarantine  and  report.  Within  a  fortnight  all 
of  his  colleagues  had  died,  and  Alderman  Hall  at- 
tributed his  escape  to  the  salubrity  of  his  country 
residence  at  Harlem.  His  house  still  stands  on  a 
knoll  just  west  of  Fifth  Avenue,  a  spacious  edifice, 
but  much  dilapidated. 

That  is  the  minor  key  running  through  most  of  the 
descriptions  of  old  haunts  of  history  in  our  city- 
stately,  spacious,  but  dilapidated  !  I  used  to  think  of 
this  years  ago  when  I  looked  at  the  shabby  ruin  of 
the  superb  old  Beekman  mansion  which  used  to  stand 
just  west  of  First  Avenue,  between  Fifty- first  and 

Fifty-second  streets. 
Its  windows  looked 
out  on  Turtle  Bay ; 
its  garden,  green- 
house, and  lawns 
were  models  of  per- 
fection in  their  prime; 
its  interior  was  ele- 
gant and  left  nothing 
to  be  desired.  Here 
Baroness  Riedesel 

had  her  home  after  her  husband  was  captured  at  Sara- 
toga. In  one  of  its  rooms  Andre",  the  spy,  spent  his 


THE    BEEKMAN    HOUSE 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


241 


last  night  in  New  York  before  going  out  to  meet  dis- 
honor. Here  Lord  Howe  passed  sentence  of  death 
on  Nathan  Hale,  the  martyr  spy  of  the  Revolution, 
in  whose  honor  New  York  has  not  erected  the  monu- 
ment he  deserves.  Yet  with  all  these  associations 
I  was  not  sorry  to  find  thq  Beekman  house  torn 
down,  for  I  had  felt  that  the  ghosts  of  its  former  oc- 
cupants, if  they  were  permitted  to  return  to  earth, 
would  annihilate  themselves  with  grief  over  its  decay. 


FIRE   IN   OLDEN   TIMES 


242  A   TOUR  AROUND  NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER    XX 

A  CIVIC  PANTHEON— FIRST  BLOOD  OF  THE  REVOLUTION— MERCHANTS 
WHO  WERE  STATESMEN  — THE  DISINHERITED  DAUGHTER — IN  AN 
OLD  TAVERN 

IT  has  always  appeared  strange  to  me  that  New 
York  merchants  seem  to  know  or  care  so  little  about 
the  great  names  that  have  adorned  the  commerce  of 
this  city.  There  is  no  harm  in  erecting  statues  to 
Lafayette,  Seward,  and  Franklin,  or  in  placing  Wash- 
ington on  his  feet  in  Wall  Street,  and  on  horseback  in 
Union  Square ;  but  it  would  look  better  for  the  local 
pride  of  the  great  metropolis  if  her  citizens  reared  on 
the  old  historic  Commons  on  which  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  read  to  the  troops  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Washington — the  present  City  Hall  Park- 
heroic  statues  to  the  two  great  merchants  of  this  city, 
Francis  Lewis  and  Philip  Livingston,  who  signed  the 
Declaration.  It  would  tell  the  story  of  the  time  when 
there  was  a  political  genius  as  well  as  a  commercial 
power  among  the  merchants  of  our  city,  and  the  aris- 
tocracy of  business  was  as  much  recognized  as  that  of 
birth,  and  far  more  highly  honored.  If  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  magnified  its  office  as  the  old-time  mer- 
chants magnified  their  position,  the  monuments  to 
the  commercial  giants  of  the  past  would  almost  rear 
themselves. 

As  I  look  back  to  the  days  of  Lewis  and  Living- 
ston and  their  compeers,  I  am  surprised  at  the  part 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


245 


they  played  in  public.  New  York  was  a  little  city, 
but  it  felt  its  importance  and  exacted  its  full  meed  of 
respect.  A  century  and  a  half  ago  it  struck  its  first 
decisive  blow  for  the  liberty  of  the  Press.  It  sent  a 
committee  on  board  the  ship  London,  and  they  threw 
the. cargo  of  tea  overboard  in  the  bay,  on  April  22, 
1774,  in  broad  daylight  and  without  any  attempt  at 
disguise.  Before  this  it  had  organized  the  Sons  of 
Liberty,  "to- transmit  to  our  posterity  the  blessings 
of  freedom  which  our  ancestors  have  handed  down  to 
us,"  and  they  met  the  British  soldiery  in  open  battle 
on  Golden  Hill  two  months  before  the  Boston  massa- 
cre and  five  years  before  the  fight 
at  Lexington.  Indeed,  New  York 
has  every  right  to  claim  that  the 
blood  of  her  citizens  was  the  first 
that  was  shed  in  the  cause  for  free- 
dom. It  was  her  merchants  that 
seized  the  battery  and  the  fort, 
and  turned  the  guns  on  his  Maj- 
esty's frigate  A sia  ;  that  captured 
the  wagons  loaded  with  arms  un- 
der escort  of  the  Royal  Irish 

Regiment ;  that  carried  off  all  the  type  from  the  office 
of  the  Royal  Gazetteer  and  melted  it  into  bullets  ;  that 
pulled  down  the  equestrian  statue  of  King  George  on 
the  Bowling  Green,  and  had  it  speedily  transmuted 
into  cartridges,  fulfilling  the  threat  of  one  of  their 
number  that  the  British  troops  should  have  "  melted 
majesty  fired  at  them."  That  was  a  magnificent  ros- 
ter of  patriotism  which  included  the  names  of  Peter 
and  Philip  Livingston,  John  Alsop,  Isaac  Low,  John 
Wiley,  Isaac  Sears,  Marinus  Willett,  Alexander  Mc- 

16* 


PLAN  OF  FORT  GEORGE, 
BATTERY 


246  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

Dougall,  John  Broome,  Leonard  Lispenard,  Henry 
Rutgers,  Isaac  Roosevelt,  Duane,  Jay,  Cruger,  Bay- 
ard, Clinton,  etc.  The  list  is  too  long  to  print  even  as 
a  roll  of  honor,  and  the  grand  little  city  was  as  proud 
of  her  sons  as  they  were  jealous  of  her  honor. 

But  I  must  try  to  come  to  the  present  century,  even 
if  I  have  to  run  back  and  make  a  fresh  start.  When 
Francis  Lewis,  son  of  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  Cathe- 
dral in  London,  a  sturdy,  brainy  young  Welshman, 
landed  in  this  city,  with  a  cargo  of  which  he  was  part 
owner,  in  1735,  he  found  it  alive  with  excitement.  Pe- 
ter Zenger,  publisher  of  the  New  York  Gazette,  was 
on  trial  for  seditious  libel.  It  had  been  ordered  that 
his  paper  should  be  burned  on  the  Commons  "  by  the 
pillory,"  at  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Mayor  and  Recorder,  and  he  had  been 
cast  into  prison  and  denied  pen,  ink,  and  paper.  The 
liberty  of  the  Press  was  endangered,  and  New  York 
burned  to  vindicate  the  majesty  of  the  fourth  estate. 
The  services  of  Andrew  Hamilton,  the  silver-tongued 
leader  of  the  bar  in  Philadelphia,  then  the  largest  city 
in  the  colonies,  were  secretly  engaged  in  behalf  of 
Zenger.  It  was  a  trial  that  shook  the  New  World. 
Hamilton's  eloquence  swept  everything  before  it,  and 
the  jury  promptly  returned  a  verdict  of  not  guilty. 
A  public  dinner  was  tendered  the  great  barrister  by 
the  corporation,  and  on  this  occasion  the  Mayor  pre- 
sented him  with  the  freedom  of  the  city  in  a  magnifi- 
cent gold  snuffbox  purchased  by  private  subscription. 
The  whole  city  escorted  him  to  the  barge  that  was  to 
convey  him  to  Philadelphia,  amid  the  booming  of  can- 
non and  the  waving  of  banners. 

Into  this  seething  little  volcano  of  popular  struggles 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  247 

after  the  rights  of  citizenship  young  Lewis  was  pre- 
cipitated. It  was  the  moulding  of  his  manhood.  Nev- 
er hesitating  for  an  instant,  he  ranged  himself  on  the 
side  of  the  people  as  against  the  Crown,  and  when  the 
time  came  for  this  grand  old  merchant  of  New  York 
to  prove  his  sincerity  by  sacrifice,  he  laid  all  that  he 
had  upon  the  altar  of  his  country.  It  was  but  the 
embryo  of  a  city  to  which  the  youth  of  twenty-one 
came  in  1735.  Its  population  was  then  less  than  nine 
thousand,  and  it  lay  entirely  below  the  Commons. 
Young  Lewis  went  at  once  into  partnership  with  Mr. 
Edward  Annesley  in  the  foreign  trade ;  their  store 
was  in  Dock  Street,  near  the  Merchants'  Exchange, 
that  then  stood  in  Broad  Street,  between  what  are 
now  Pearl  and  Water  streets.  And  here  comes  in  a 
sweet  touch  of  romance,  in  the  story  of  how  the  young 
stranger  wooed  and  won  for  his  wife  fair  Mary  Annes- 
ley, sister  of  his  partner,  and  the  acknowledged  belle 


THE   ROYAL   EXCHANGE,    BROAD    STREET 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK  249 

of  the  city.  A  man  of  wonderful  enterprise,  Mr.  Lewis 
visited  Russia  to  make  business  connections,  was  ship- 
wrecked off  the  coast  of  Ireland,  traversed  the  West 
Indies,  and  was  the  sole  survivor  of  the  massacre  of 
Oswego  when  Montcalm  and  his  Indian  allies  capt- 
ured that  city.  The  red  men  spared  his  life  because 
of  their  superstition.  Owing  to  the  resemblance  be- 
tween the  Welsh  language  and  the  Indian  dialects, 
Mr.  Lewis  was  able  to  converse  with  them  and  make 
himself  understood,  and  their  traditions  of  the  Mes- 
siah from  beyond  the  great  seas  led  them  to  look  upon 
the  speaker  of  this  strange  tongue — the  ghost  of  the 
tongue  they  spoke  among  themselves — with  an  awe 
that  stayed  their  hands  from  slaughter. 

So  the  years  went  by,  filled  with  commercial  tri- 
umphs, and  when  the  battle  of  Lexington  was  fought 
the  news  that  upheaved  the  continent  found  Francis 
Lewis  retired  from  business  and  enjoying  the  vaca- 
tion of  life  in  his  pleasant  country-seat  at  Whitestone. 
Then  his  country  called  him,  and  he  obeyed.  As  early 
as  1765  he  had  been  a  member  of  the  Provisional  Con- 
gress that  opposed  the  Stamp  Act,  and  in  1775  he  was 
elected  to  the  Continental  Congress  at  Philadelphia, 
where  he  achieved  immortality  as  quietly  as  he  had 
won  the  business  triumphs  of  his  life  by  affixing  his 
signature  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Later 
in  the  same  year  his  Long  Island  dwelling  was  plun- 
dered by  British  soldiers,  his  valuable  library  was  de- 
stroyed, and  his  wife  made  prisoner  and  retained  for 
several  months  in  confinement,  under  such  circum- 
stances of  cruelty  as  broke  down  her  health  and 
brought  her  quickly  to  the  grave.  Yet  the  old  mer- 
chant kept  right  onward.  One  of  the  wealthiest  men 


250  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK 

of  the  city  and  the  time,  he  perilled  everything  for 
the  good  cause,  and  he  lost  everything.  It  was  enough 
for  him  that  the  cause  of  justice  and  a  people's  liber- 
ties won.  Yet  it  came  to  pass  that  the  sunset  of  his 
life  was  peace  and  pleasantness.  In  his  home  on  Cort- 
landt  Street  he  saw  the  century  close.  At  seventy  he 
was  chosen  vestryman  of  Trinity  Church.  Twenty 
years  later,  on  December  30,  1803,  he  died,  when  his 
years  had  reached  fourscore  and  ten,  and  was  rever- 
ently interred  in  Trinity  church-yard. 

Francis  Lewis,  eldest  son  of  the  old  signer,  was  a 
man  of  influence  in  his  day,  marrying  Elizabeth, 
daughter  of  Daniel  Ludlow,  an  eminent  merchant, 
and  leaving  many  descendants.  One  of  his  daughters 
married  Samuel  G.  Ogden,  who  was  a  distinguished 
merchant  of  New  York  at  the  opening  of  the  present 
century.  The  second  son,  Morgan  Lewis,  was  a  much 
more  famous  man.  Taking  up  arms  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  he  distinguished  him- 
self at  Stillwater,  where  he  was  the  officer  who  received 
the  surrender  of  Burgoyne's  troops,  and  rose  to  the 
command  of  a  regiment.  In  the  war  of  1812  he  was 
a  major-general,  did  good  service  at  the  Niagara  fron- 
tier, and  had  charge  of  the  defences  of  New  York.  In 
looking  up  his  military  record  I  was  surprised  to  find 
that  in  November,  1775,  Morgan  Lewis  was  appointed 
first  major  of  the  Second  Regiment,  of  which  John  Jay 
was  colonel.  I  had  never  heard  of  the  distinguished 
jurist  as  a  soldier,  and  I  find  that  other  important  du- 
ties intervened,  and  that  he  did  not  accept  the  com- 
mand. Equally  competent  in  the  forum  and  the  field, 
Morgan  Lewis  served  as  Attorney-general  and  Chief- 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  this  State,  and  was 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  251 

elected  Governor  and  afterwards  United  States  Sena- 
tor. In  1779  he  married  Gertrude,  daughter  of  Chan- 
cellor Livingston.  Their  only  child,  a  daughter,  be- 
came the  wife  of  Maturin  Livingston.  For  forty  years 
or  more  the  Governor  occupied  a  spacious  double  man- 
sion at  the  corner  of  Church  and  Leonard  streets, 
where  he  dispensed  a  patriarchal  hospitality.  From 
this  house  he  was  buried  on  April  n,  1844.  I  recall 
the  occasion.  As  Governor  Lewis  was  President-gen- 
eral of  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati  and  Grand  Mas- 
ter of  Masons,  there  was  to  be  a  great  display,  and 
every  school-boy  in  town — of  whom  I  was  one — was 
anxious  to  see  it,  and  I  think  we  were  all  there.  The 
military,  the  veterans  of  the  Cincinnati,  the  martial 
music,  and  the  paraphernalia  of  the  Freemasons  made 
an  imposing  and  stately  procession.  The  streets  were 
thronged  with  people  on  the  whole  line  of  march,  from 
the  house  on  Leonard  Street  to  St.  Paul's  Church, 
where  the  funeral  services  were  held — Trinity  Church 
being  then  in  process  of  rebuilding.  I  remember  that 
I  had  eyes  only  for  one  man,  the  venerable  Major 
Popham,  last  survivor  of  the  original  members  of  the 
Cincinnati,  whom  George  Washington  had  commis- 
sioned, who  was  hale  and  hearty  at  ninety-two,  and 
looked  as  if  he  might  round  the  century.  There  had 
been  talk  of  this  veteran  at  my  home,  and  with  the 
old  Revolutionary  colonel  lying  in  his  coffin,  the  ma- 
jor who  survived  him  became  to  my  eyes  almost  co- 
eval with  'the  Pharaohs,  and  I  watched  him  and  won- 
dered what  thoughts  were  throbbing  under  his  white 
hairs,  and  what  memories  of  other  days  were  tugging 
at  his  heart. 

But  there  was  a  daughter  whom  old  Francis  Lewis 


252 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


dearly  loved,  and  she  nearly  broke  his  heart  by  mar- 
rying a  British  officer,  Captain  Robertson.  Her  father 
threatened  to  disinherit  her ;  but  when  did  love  ever 
pay  heed  to  either  threats  or  bribes  ?  The  lovers 
sought  the  aid  of  Dr.  Inglis,  rector  of  Trinity  Church, 
and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Nova  Scotia,  a  devoted  loy- 
alist, and  he  secretly  married  them.  Then  they  sailed 
for  England,  and  the  old  man  forbade  mention  of  his 
daughter  Ann  in  his  presence,  and  crossed  her  name 
out  of  his  will.  Captain  Robertson  and  his  wife  had 
six  children,  and  two  of  their  daughters  married  Eng- 
lish bishops.  The  second  daughter  became  the  wife 
of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  John  Bird  Sumner,  Bishop  of 
Chester,  and  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Another  wedded  Bishop  Wilson,  of  Calcutta. 

Philip  Livingston,  born  in  the  days  when  it  was 
quaintly  provided  that  "  upon  the  Feast  Day  of  St. 
Michael  the  Archangel  yearly"  the  Lieutenant-gov- 
ernor and  council  should  appoint  the  mayor,  became 
a  graduate  of  Yale  College,  but  turned  his  attention 


FOOT   OF   WALL   STREET   AND    FERRY-HOUSE,  1629 


FOOT    OF   WALL   STREET   AND    FERRY-HOUSE,    1746 

to  business  at  once,  and  was  elected  alderman  before 
he  was  thirty.  Possessed  of  the  mercantile  instinct, 
he  made  money.  It  could  not  be  otherwise,  for  he 
knew  the  value  of  advertising,  and  whatever  he  had 
for  sale  will  be  found  in  the  newspaper  columns  of  his 
day.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  notice  that  there  is  "  to 
be  sold  by  Philip  Livingston,  at  his  store  in  the  New 
Dock,  near  the  Ferry  stairs,"  Irish  linens,  black  and 
blue  peelong,  needles  and  teakettles,  breeches  and  sper- 
maceti candles,  pork  and  knee-buckles,  combs  and  Bo- 
hea  tea,  brass  thimbles  and  a  cargo  of  choice  Teneriffe 
wine  just  imported !  Fancy  a  signer  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  dealing  out  tape  and  snuff,  ivory 


254  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

combs,  and  split-horn  knives  and  forks ;  and  yet  this 
was  what  Philip  Livingston  was  doing  when,  in  1774, 
he  was  sent  to  the  first  colonial  Congress  at  Philadel- 
phia. Elected  to  each  successive  Congress,  he  died  in 
the  harness,  at  York,  Pa.,  in  the  darkest  hour  of  the 
country's  need,  but  with  a  sublime,  faith  in  her  future. 
Like  Francis  Lewis,  he  proved  his  faith  by  his  works. 
As  soon  as  his  signature  had  been  affixed  to  his  coun- 
try's magna  charta,  he  sold  a  large  part  of  his  prop- 
erty to  sustain  the  public  credit.  That  was  the  way 
in  which  a  New  York  merchant  did  business  a  century 
ago. 

There  was  a  noted  place  of  resort  for  the  patriots 
and  politicians  in  those  days.  It  was  the  King's 
Arms'  Tavern,  on  the  west  side  of  Broadway,  between 
what  were  then  Crown  Street  and  Little  Prince,  or 
Cedar  and  Liberty  streets  of  the  present  day.  Old 
Johnny  Battin  has  often  told  me  of  its  glories  and 
pointed  out  its  locality,  for  he,  like  the  rest  of  the 
British  officers  of  his  day,  knew  all  about  the  myste- 
ries of  its  tap -room,  and  was  full  of  traditions  that 
connected  Howe  and  Clinton  and  Cornwallis  with  its 
junketings.  An  antiquated  gray-stone  building  whose 
lower  windows  reached  down  to  the  broad  piazza,  in 
front,  it  had  no  buildings  intervening  between  it  and 
the  Hudson,  which  then  came  nearly  up  to  Green- 
wich Street.  Flower-gardens  filled  the  rear,  while  the 
front  was  shaded  by  a  row  of  magnificent  catalpas. 
On  top  was  a  spacious  cupola,  which  gave  a  fine  view 
from  Lady  Warren's  country-seat  at  Greenwich  to 
Staten  Island,  and  from  Paulus  Hook  to  the  Breuck- 
elen  Heights.  It  was  up  the  spacious  entrance  to 
the  King's  Arms  that  Lord  Cornbury  rode  upon  his 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  257 

well-trained  horse,  and  astonished  the  landlord  by  de- 
manding a  stirrup-cup  in  the  saddle.  A  spacious  bar- 
room furnished  with  little  boxes  screened  by  silken 
curtains,  a  still  more  spacious  dining-room  furnished 
with  that  greater  rarity  of  a  century  ago,  a  carpet,  a 
spacious  piazza  on  which  the  beaux  of  the  period 
lounged  and  ogled  the  pretty  women  that  passed — 
this  was  the  spot  that  cradled  early  meetings  of  the 
Committee  of  Fifty,  which  set  the  ball  of  the  Revolu- 
tion rolling  in  New  York  and  began  the  successful  re- 
bellion against  crown  and  king. 

These  pictures  of  the  past  came  back  to  me  one 
afternoon  as  the  cars  of  the  elevated  railway  whirled 
me  past  our  one  statue  of  a  modern  merchant  of  New 
York,  and  set  me  thinking  of  King  George's  broken 
crown,  and  two  staid  old  business  men  of  Gotham 
who  had  so  far  forgotten  dollars  and  cents  as  to  place 
their  necks  voluntarily  in  a  halter,  risking  the  forfeit- 
ure of  all  that  they  had  of  worldly  goods  in  addition 
to  their  lives.  What  manner  of  men  were  they,  I 
wondered,  who  could  do  and  dare  so  much,  and  what 
manner  of  men  were  they,  their  successors,  who  could 
forget  it?  How  many  business  men — how  many  of 
New  York's  rich  men — know  where  sleep  the  ashes  of 
Francis  Lewis  and  Philip  Livingston  ?  Happily  they 
made  not  their  sacrifices  to  be  seen  of  men  or  re- 
warded by  them.  Sweet  is  their  sleep  beneath  the 
grasses  wet  by  God's  dews  as  if  a  nation  had  reared 
a  marble  pile  above  to  pierce  the  skies  and  commem- 
orate their  patriotism.  The  sunshine  falls  upon  the 
trees  in  the  church-yard  and  dances  over  their  resting- 
places,  and  the  rain  visits  them  with  gentle  touch,  and 
they  shall  break  from  the  loving  arms  of  dear  Mother 


258 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


Earth  just  as  gladly,  when  the  trump  of  the  last  Easter 
sends  forth  its  call,  as  though  their  graves  had  been 
made  a  point  of  pilgrimage  for  a  thousand  centuries. 
And  yet — and  yet — it  would  not  be  a  bad  thing  for 
New  York  to  remember  the  children  of  whom  she  has 
all  reason  to  be  proud,  and  whose  honor  is  her  glory. 


SUGAR-HOUSE   IN   LIBERTY    STREET 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  259 


CHAPTER    XXI 

TEAKETTLES  AS  MODES  OF  MOTION — TWO  LEAVES  FROM  AN  OLD  MER- 
CHANT'S ITINERARY — QUAKER  NOOKS  AND  COVENANTERS*  HAUNTS 
—CITY  FARM-HOUSES—UP  BREAKNECK  HILL — HARLEM  LANE  IN  ITS 
GLORY — SUMMER  ATTRACTIONS  OF  MANHATTAN  STREETS 

"  DON'T  talk  to  me,"  said  my  grandmother — and 
when  that  revered  woman  made  use  of  this  emphatic 
preface,  I  knew  that  something  as  infallible  as  the  acts 
passed  by  the  Senate  and  Assembly  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians  was  to  follow — "  don't  talk  to  me,  Felix,  for 
I  always  felt  that  it  was  flying  in  the  face  of  Provi- 
dence to  use  a  teakettle  to  travel  with.  Wasn't  I  on 
board  the  Samson  one  Fourth  of  July  when  the  upper 
deck  fell  through  and  crushed  some  of  my  friends  to 
death,  and  didn't  we  run  over  a  cow  and  skin  it  when 
we  were  going  to  Rahway  ?  I  am  out  of  all  patience 
with  steamboats  and  locomotives.  No,  I  am  not  go- 
ing one  step  out  of  town  this  summer.  When  I  want 
to  go  into  the  country,  I'll  take  the  Bloomingdale  om- 
nibus and  visit  my  friends.  There's  all  the  country  I 
want  on  this  side  of  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek,  and  I  can 
get  there  without  a  sputtering  teakettle  to  drag  me." 
I  confess  to  have  grown  up  in  these  late  years  into 
my  grandmother's  state  of  mind — believing  that  there 
is  no  spot  on  earth  so  beautiful  as  this  city,  and  hav- 
ing every  year  less  inclination  to  leave  it.  I  crave  .no 
distant  journeyings;  my  heart  turns  to  no  other  peo- 
ple. At  home  among  the  swarming  streets,  I  would 


260  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

not  exchange  their  summer  sights  and  sounds  for 
Newport  sands  or  Adirondack  woods. 

Speaking  of  journeys,  here  is  the  itinerary  of  two 
journeys  made  by  an  old  merchant  of  this  city,  written 
by  a  nonagenarian  hand  that  is  lifeless  now,  but  that 
had  a  vigorous  clasp  for  a  friend  only  a  few  short 
weeks  ago.  It  is  the  record  of  his  first  and  last  jour- 
neys between  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  and  pre- 
sents an  extremely  suggestive  contrast.  The  old 
merchant  writes : 

"Previous  to  the  year  1817  the  mail  service  be- 
tween the  two  cities,  as  almost  everywhere  else  in  the 
United  States,  was  in  a  most  unsatisfactory  condition. 
About  that  time  Gov.  Daniel  D.  Tompkins  set  him- 
self to  establish  a  shorter  mail  route,  and  with  this 
view  opened  the  Richmond  County  turnpike  across 
Staten  Island,  where  he  already  owned  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  North  Shore,  with  the  land  under  water 
and  the  Quarantine  Ferry.  About  February  20,  1820, 
there  was  a  severe  thunder-storm,  which  apparently 
broke  up  the  winter,  as  there  was  none  to  speak  of 
afterwards,  though  there  was  plenty  of  disagreeably 
cold  weather.  Towards  the  middle  of  March  business 
called  me  to  Philadelphia,  and  I  availed  myself  of 
Governor  Tompkins's  shortened  route  for  the  trip,  of 
which  here  is  the  history :  I  was  boarding  at  No.  40 
Broadway,  and  it  was  a  very  cold,  raw  March  morning, 
when,  at  five  o'clock,  I  was  summoned  to  the  carriage 
at  the  door — which  carriage  turned  out  to  be  a  great, 
heavy,  lumbering  stage-coach,  in  which,  on  entering,  I 
found  five  other  half- frozen  passengers.  We  were 
driven  down  to  Pier  No.  I,  North  River,  and  there 
transferred  to  the  steamboat  Hercules,  a  veritable  tub. 


a 

S       JB 


II 


«  o 

p. 

«'  O 

sr  a 

3  "i 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  263 

with  no  saloon  nor  protection  on  deck,  and  only  a 
small  unventilated  cubby-hole  down-stairs,  called  by 
courtesy  the  cabin.  After  a  most  uncomfortable  pas- 
sage we  landed  at  Quarantine,  Staten  Island,  and 
were  placed  in  large  four-horse  stages,  in  which  we  at 
once  started  on  our  journey,  passing  over  the  Rich- 
mond County  Turnpike,  the  hardest,  roughest  road  I 
had  ever  travelled,  crossing  the  Kill  von  Kull  to  Perth 
Amboy,  and  thence  to  Trenton,  where  we  arrived  after 
dark.  The  road  from  Perth  Amboy  to  Trenton  re- 
deemed the  Richmond  Turnpike  by  contrast,  it  was  so 
much  worse.  We  remained  at  Trenton  all  night,  for 
we  were  thoroughly  exhausted  and  needed  rest,  and 
next  morning  took  steamboat  to  Philadelphia,  which 
we  reached  a  little  after  ten  o'clock,  being  thus  en- 
abled to  deliver  the  mail  from  the  New  York  Post- 
office  to  the  office  in  Philadelphia  in  the  almost  in- 
credibly short  time  of  thirty  hours.  So  much  for  the 
fast  mail  delivery  in  1820.  Sixty-five  years  afterwards, 
on  Tuesday,  May  26,  1885,  at  5  p-M->  I  left  Victoria, 
Vancouver's  Island,  British  Columbia,  by  the  Northern 
Pacific  Railroad  for  New  York.  After  a  most  pleas- 
ant journey  I  arrived  at  the  Pavilion  Hotel,  New 
Brighton,  Staten  Island,  on  that  day  week,  having 
travelled  3500  miles  in  seven  days  without  the  slight- 
est feeling  of  fatigue.  I  timed  the  distance  from  Phila- 
delphia to  New  York — or,  rather,  to  the  terminus  at 
Jersey  City — a  few  minutes  less  than  two  hours.  So 
I  have  seen  the  time  between  the  two  cities  shortened 
from  thirty  hours  to  two,  with  luxury  of  travel  sub- 
stituted for  discomfort." 

The  old  merchant  has  gone  a  longer  journey  since 
he  wrote  this  record,  and  on  still  swifter  wings  than 


264  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

those  of  steam.  He  loved  New  York,  as  well  he 
might,  for  he  had  been  in  business  here  for  more  than 
sixty  years,  and  it  was  a  comfort  to  him,  as  the  silver 
cord  of  life  was  loosened,  to  remember  that  his  dust 
would  rest  within  the  city's  confines,  and  in  hearing  of 
the  tramp  of  its  myriad  feet  and  the  roar  of  its  sleep- 
less traffic.  In  the  last  lines  his  hand  penned  he 
wrote:  "I  hope  that  in  your  tour  you  will  not  omit 
that  gem  of  country  churches,  the  church  of  my  affec- 
tions, where  I  was  married  in  1825,  in  which  my  chil- 
dren were  baptized,  and  where  wife  and  children, 
brothers  and  sisters,  are  entombed — namely,  St.  Mark's 
Church,  in  the  Bowery.  It  was  situated  in  a  true 
bowery  in  those  days,  constituted  by  a  succession  of 
leafy  bowers.  There  are  no  ties  more  binding  to  a 
feeling  heart  than  attachment  to  the  graves  of  our 
kindred,  and  I  have  cherished  with  wonderful  love  for 
more  than  half  a  century  the  little  green  church-yard 
that  surrounds  the  old  Bowery  '  chapel '  which  Peter 
Stuyvesant  built  and  endowed,  and  which  his  heredi- 
tary enemies  afterwards  consecrated  to  their  own 
form  of  worship." 

I  have  already  spoken  of  this  ancient  and  once  re- 
nowned edifice,  which,  like  old  Trinity,  is  a  landmark 
among  a  strange  people  who  have  to  be  taught  its 
history — a  landmark  which,  I  trust,  will  never  be  re- 
moved. Its  story  is  part  of  the  city's  history,  and  if 
its  foundations  were  removed  away  from  the  region 
of  the  ancient  "  bouweries  "  of  New  Amsterdam,  its 
record  would  be  meaningless.  What  is  needed  to 
accentuate  the  good  it  has  accomplished  and  is  still 
doing  is  a  shaft  to  the  memory  of  hard-headed  Peter 
Stuyvesant,  last  and  most  valiant  of  the  old  Dutch 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  265 

Governors  of  the  ancient  Holland  colony.  Shaft  and 
church  together  would  mark  the  complete  blending 
of  religion  and  patriotism  which  produces  the  most 
perfect  of  citizens. 

No,  I  do  not  go  into  the  country  for  the  summer. 
The  newspapers  are  filled  with  advertisements  of 
fresh  country  air,  delightful  sea-breezes,  the  joys  of 
lake  and  mountain  and  ocean  during  the  dog-days, 
but  they  have  no  attraction  for  me.  I  am  content 
with  the  city,  even  in  the  heated  term,  for  I  have 
learned  all  its  secrets,  and  know  just  where  to  turn  for 
shelter  from  the  torrid  skies,  just  how  to  enjoy  a 
day's  outing,  just  when  to  look  for  the  refreshing 
evening  breeze  to  lift  the  curtain  at  my  window.  Be- 
sides, I  cannot  part  with  the  streets  filled  with  people 
"as  trees  walking,"  as  changeful  as  the  leaves  of  the 
forest.  The  country  road,  half-hidden  by  trees  through 
which  the  stars  shine  dimly,  has  a  charm  of  its  own, 
but  it  cannot  compare  with  the  broad  avenue  in  which 
electricity  creates  a  second  daylight,  which  is  terraced 
by  long  lines  of  shop -windows  glittering  with  the 
wares  of  all  nations,  and  whose  sidewalks  present  a 
bewildering  array  of  the  fair  faces  of  young  girls  and 
the  gentle  graces  of  matronhood.  As  if  there  were 
perpetual  moonlight  in  our  parks,  the  shadows  of  the 
trees  make  a  wonderful  lace -work  on  the  pathways, 
and  long  processions  of  lovers,  seeking  the  ark  of  mat- 
rimony in  pairs,  as  all  animated  creation  swept  into 
Noah's  ship  of  fate,  forever  wander  there,  and  forever 
reveal  in  their  happy  faces  the  story  of  our  first  fa- 
ther's love.  If  I  could  take  these  with  me — the 
churches  and  shops,  the  libraries  and  picture-galleries, 
the  theatres  and  hotels,  the  beehive  homes,  the  pave- 


266  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 

ments,  and  their  occupants — I  might  be  persuaded  to 
desert  the  city  of  my  love ;  but  until  this  is  possible  I 
am  content  to  remain  here  in  town. 

What  is  there  that  I  need  which  the  city  will  not 
supply?  There  is  no  sea-breeze  that  blows  on  distant 
coasts  that  is  half  so  sweet  as  that  which  sweeps  over 
the  Battery,  and  comes  freighted  with  memory  as  well 
as  health.  There  are  no  stretches  of  rural  landscape 
more  beautiful  than  those  which  sweep  down  to  Kings- 
bridge,  along  the  Harlem,  or  up  beyond  Manhattan- 
ville  and  around  Fort  George.  I  know  where  to  find 
traces  of  village  life  in  those  ancient  parts  of  the  city 
that  were  once  known  as  Greenwich  Village  and  Chel- 
sea, Bowery  Village  and  Yorkville,  but  which  to  this 
generation  are  only  handed  down  as  a  tradition.  I 
know  where  to  go  to  find  the  fragments  of  the  once 
powerful  old  Scotch  Presbyterian  colony  (who  opened 
in  this  city  nearly  a  century  ago  the  first  theological 
seminary  which  New  York  could  boast,  and  in  which 
the  famous  Rev.  James  M.  Mathews,  D.D.,  was  a  pro- 
fessor eighty  years  ago),  and  to  hear  droned  out  in 
the  summer  afternoons  and  evenings  from  old-fash- 
ioned homes,  without  the  intervention  of  a  "  kist  o' 
pipes,"  the  ancient  psalms  in  which  the  soul  of  the 
Covenanter  delighted,  and  which  told  how 

"  Moab  my  wash-pot  is,  my  shoe 
I'll  over  Edom  cast," 

and  which  provoked  piety  by  putting  into  rhyme  ev- 
ery verse  of  the  Psalms,  and  found  religious  exaltation 
in  chanting  David's  curious  criticism  of  his  foes : 

"  They  through  the  city  like  a  dog 
Will  grin  and  go  about." 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  267 

I  know  where  to  go  to  find  a  quiet  Quaker  street, 
whose  houses  have  that  unaffected  air  of  repose  which 
other  homes  cannot  copy.  Whenever  I  turn  the  cor- 
ner into  this  haven  of  social  rest  the  atmosphere 
seems  to  change,  and  care  is  left  behind,  and  the  mind 
grows  serenely  contemplative.  The  blinds  of  the 
houses  are  carefully  closed  —  this  is  a  peculiarity  of 
the  neighborhood  ;  but  from  the  doors  of  these  homes 
come  forth  such  peaceful  faces,  delicate  types  of  fair 
maidenhood,  with  downcast  eyes,  and  of  happy  moth- 
erhood only  a  shade  less  beautiful  in  its  maturity  of 
charms,  as  are  found  nowhere  else. 

There  are  old  frame-houses  in  Orchard  and  Mar- 
ket streets  which  recall  the  time'when  that  neighbor- 
hood was  a  Quaker  settlement,  full  of  gardens  and  or- 
chards, with  comfortable  homes  set  in  with  trees  and 
shrubbery.  Old  people  still  live  who  remember  it 
as  the  garden  spot  of  the  city,  in  whose  vicinity  young 
couples  of  a  past  generation  were  glad  to  set  up  their 
household  gods.  Market  Street,  in  the  days  of  its 
roistering  youth,  was  known  as  George  Street,  and 
had  an  exceedingly  evil  repute.  A  perpetual  sound 
of  revelry  pervaded  it,  and  its  inhabitants  were  of  the 
spider  family  and  spared  no  victims  whom  their  nets 
had  enmeshed.  The  place  was  an  eyesore  to  the 
Quakers,  who,  finding  that  the  authorities  would  do 
nothing  to  mend  matters,  adopted  their  own  measures 
of  reform.  Their  plan  was  radical.  They  bought  up 
the  entire  property,  rebuilt  some  of  the  houses,  and 
purified  all  of  them,  changed  the  name  of  the  street 
to  Market,  and  then  settled  down  and  made  their 
homes  there.  It  was  a  wonderful  transformation  scene, 
and  a  very  suggestive  one  to  the  reformer  of  a  later  day. 


268  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

If  the  summer  sojourner  in  the  city  wishes  for 
change  of  scene  from  bricks  and  mortar,  I  can  take 
him  to  thick  woods  that  fringe  the  Hudson,  and  that 
recall  the  time  when  a  large  portion  of  the  island  was 
covered  by  dense  forests.  There  the  primeval  oak 
still  flourishes,  and  the  lichens  yet  cling  to  the  rocks 
as  in  the  days  when  the  foot  of  the  Weekquaesgeek 
warrior  pressed  the  mosses  so  lightly  that  it  failed  to 
crush  them.  Between  the  rocks  and  over  the  fallen 
leaves  trickles  the  ghost  of  a  brook  in  which  trout 
once  leaped  and  played,  and  which,  so  tradition  says, 
was  once  powerful  enough  to  turn  the  wheel  of  a 
mill  where  it  sprang  into  the  embrace  of  the  Hudson. 
Here  is  rest  from  the  city's  roar,  and  here  is  a  solitude 
of  nature  as  complete  as  one  can  find  in  the  heart  of 
the  Adirondacks.  Come  with  me  for  a  walk  to  Tubby 
Hook,  and  before  we  have  turned  homeward  you  shall 
confess  that  by  land  or  sea  there  is  no  more  beautiful 
spot  on  which  the  sun  shines.  Or  if  you  tire  of  the 
land,  let  us  embark  on  the  waters  of  the  Spuyten 
Duyvil,  and  up  in  the  creeks  which  are  its  tributaries 
we  shall  find  a  wilderness  of  marsh  and  shrubbery 
which  will  make  us  fancy  that  a  hundred  miles  inter- 
vene between  our  boat  and  the  guardian  statue  of 
"Justice  "on  the  City  Hall.  The  old  King's  Bridge  is 
unchanged  since  the  day  when  the  Hessian  allies  of 
Great  Britain  under  command  of  Knyphausen  marched 
across  it  to  make  a  raid  upon  the  "  neutral  ground  " 
of  Westchester  County,  and  the  ancient  hostlery  of 
the  Blue  Bell  presents  the  same  appearance  that  it 
did  to  Lord  Howe  and  his  staff  when  they  halted 
there  and  ordered  one  of  his  famous  dinners.  Tow- 
ards the  Hudson  is  the  spot  where  the  Half  Moon 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  269 

anchored  and  had  its  first  battle  with  the  Indians,  and 
where  its  crew  dug  the  first  grave  on  the  Island  of 
Manhattan.  If  we  turn  the  other  way  and  sail  be- 
yond the  steep  and  wooded  headlands  known  as 
Washington  Heights,  the  river  brings  us  to  a  battle- 
field of  a  later  day  and  a  different  kind.  For  at  the 
bridge  which  bears  his  name,  General  Macomb  dammed 
the  Harlem  River,  to  the  great  and  general  indigna- 
tion of  his  neighbors.  The  men  of  lower  Westchester 
reached  such  a  pitch  of  wrath  that  they  determined 
to  take  the  war  into  their  own  hands,  and  marching 
down  to  the  dam  in  a  body,  they  removed  the  obstruc- 
tion and  let  the  river  have  free  passage.  Twice  this 
was  done,  and  then  the  dam  ceased  to  exist  except  in 
name.  The  authorities  have  tried  in  vain  to  make  the 
public  patronize  their  title  of  Central  Bridge;  the  old 
name,  Macomb's  Dam  Bridge,  still  lingers  gratefully 
among  the  natives.  I  remember  some  twenty  years 
ago  to  have  attended  church  at  Mott  Haven,  and  to 
have  been  horrified  to  hear  the  minister  announce  that 
the  annual  picnic  of  the  Sunday-school  would  be  held 
during  the  week  "  at  the  Dam  Bridge." 

There  are  bits  of  farm  scenery  on  the  upper  part  of 
the  island  which  seem  to  have  remained  unchanged 
for  a  century — little  oases  of  garden  and  field,  with  a 
brief  stretch  of  country  lane  shaded  by  locust  and 
cherry  trees.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  houses,  like 
the  old  Bussing  farm-house,  between  One  Hundred 
and  Forty-sixth  and  One  Hundred  and  Forty-seventh 
streets,  and  east  of  Eighth  Avenue,  exactly  face  the 
south,  as  accurately  as  if  set  by  compass.  The  build- 
ers had  the  correct  sanitary  idea  as  well  as  a  proper 
knowledge  of  comfort.  These  homes  of  a  dead  an- 


270  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

cestry  will  soon  be  blotted  out.  The  hand  of  im- 
provement, a  rough  and  unsentimental  fist  in  its  way, 
has  already  cut  a  street  through  Breakneck  Hill,  and 
the  perils  of  the  precipitous  road  over  its  crest  have 
wellnigh  vanished.  The  highest  point  of  the  hill  was 
near  the  intersection  of  One  Hundred  and  Forty- 
seventh  Street  with  the  south  side  of  St.  Nicholas 
Avenue,  which  was  opened  in  1871  as  a  prolongation 
of  the  once  celebrated  Harlem  Lane,  which  ran  from 
the  intersection  of  Eighth  Avenue  with  One  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty -third  Street,  diagonally  to  Sixth 
Avenue,  at  One  Hundred  and  Tenth  Street,  on  the 
northern  end  of  Central  Park.  Harlem  Lane,  now 
St.  Nicholas  Avenue,  was  a  dead  level  for  the  distance 
of  three-quarters  of  a  mile,  and  here  the  owners  of 
fast  horses  tested  their  speed  on  pleasant  afternoons, 
while  all  the  sporting  world  looked  on  and  wondered. 
The  prolongation  of  the  lane,  before  St.  Nicholas 
Avenue  was  projected,  was  Eighth  Avenue,  then  a 
level  earth  road  to  Macomb's  Dam,  where  stood,  a 
half  century  ago,  two  famous  road-houses  from  which 
the  glory  has  departed,  though  they  still  exist.  An- 
other road  led  out  of  Eighth  Avenue  to  the  left,  at 
about  One  Hundred  and  Forty- first  Street,  called 
Breakneck  Road,  it  ran  up  Breakneck  Hill,  and  con- 
tinued along  until  it  intersected  Tenth  Avenue  at 
One  Hundred  and  Sixty-second  Street,  opposite  the 
Jumel  mansion,  and  crossing  into  the  present  Kings- 
bridge  Road,  opposite  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Asylum, 
kept  on  to  Kingsbridge,  two  miles  or  more  beyond. 
This  was  the  steepest,  most  difficult  and  dangerous 
road  on  Manhattan  Island,  even  more  wild  and  pre- 
cipitous than  the  McGowan's  Pass  Road  at  the  north 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  271 

end  of  Central  Park.     Several  fatal  accidents  occurred 
there  and  almost  innumerable  severe  ones. 

Why  should  I  go  to  the  country  for  change  -of  air, 
for  recreation,  or  for  comfort,  so  long  as  I  have  all 
these  delights  at  my  door,  made  ready  for  my  enjoy- 
ment? No.  For  me  the  breezes  shall  blow  from 
river  to  harbor ;  for  me  the  streets  shall  every  night 
put  on  their  holiday  attire ;  for  me  the  green  spots 
on  this  island  shall  shine  in  summer  garb,  and  the 
waters  that  gird  them  in  shall  twinkle  in  the  sun- 
shine by  day  and  dance  with  silver  gleams  by  night/ 
"  Don't  talk  to  me,  Felix,"  said  my  grandmother,  and 
I  emphasize  her  dictum  out  of  my  own  experience ; 
"  there  is  no  spot  on  earth  half  so  lovely  as  this  city 
of  New  York." 


THE  INDEPENDENT  BATTERY,  BUNKER  HILL 


272  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER   XXII 

THE  ANCIENT  MILL  AT  KINGSBRIDGE — MARCHING  WITH  WASHINGTON 
— A  PATROON  IN  THE  HAY-FIELD — GHOSTS  OF  OLD  HOUSES — THE 
STRYKER  AND  HOPPER  MANSIONS — RICHMOND  HILL — THE  WARREN 
AND  SPENCER  HOMESTEADS — ANCIENT  EARTHWORKS 

ONE  of  the  pleasantest  experiences  in  the  life  of 
Felix  Oldboy  has  been  the  receipt  of  scores  of  letters 
in  regard  to  his  "  Tour."  Some  of  them  contain  mat- 
ter which  seems  to  be  appropriate  for  incorporation 
in  these  papers,  and  which  convey  interesting  points 
in  local  history  or  queer  bits  of  mosaic  that  reveal 
traits  of  city  life  which  are  well  worth  preserving. 
One  of  recent  date,  signed  only  with  initials,  relates  to 
the  historic  territory  of  Kingsbridge.  The  writer  says: 

In  touching  upon  Inwood  and  the  waters  of  the  Harlem  and 
Spuyt-den-Duyvil  Creek,  I  hoped  you  would  mention  the  eld 
mill  that  once  stood  just  to  the  west  of  Kingsbridge,  and  to 
which  there  was  passage  over  the  water,  either  from  the  bridge 
or  from  the  New  York  side  of  the  creek.  I  remember  see- 
ing this  old  mill  as  late  as  the  year  1857,  and  I  think  that 
shortly  after  that  date  it  blew  down  or  was  carried  away  by 
the  waters  of  the  Spuyt-den-Duyvil  after  a  freshet.  This  mill 
stood  on  piles  in  the  middle  of  the  stream  on  lands  under 
water  granted  by  the  Mayor  and  Commonalty  of  New  York 
to  Alexander  McComb  in  the  year  1800  at  a  rental  of  $12.50 
per  annum.  About  the  year  1856  my  father  bought  the  mill 
and  water  grant  at  a  foreclosure  sale  for  $1650,  and  from  that 
year  to  the  present  the  tax  has  been  regularly  paid,  though  the 
mill  has  gone  and  all  else  that  belonged  to  it  except  the  bot- 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK  273 

torn  of  the  stream,  which  presumably  is  still  there.  The  lease 
from  the  city  provides  that  a  passageway  fifteen  feet  wide 
shall  be  kept  open,  so  that  small  boats  may  freely  pass  and  re- 
pass  through  the  bridge,  and  the  width  of  the  stream  seems  to 
be  thus  guaranteed  for  the  future.  Can  you  tell  me  who  built 
the  mill  that  was  destroyed  thirty  years  ago,  and  for  what  pur- 
poses was  it  ever  used  ? 

Whether  the  mill  thus  destroyed  was  the  same  that 
was  built  by  Frederick  Phillipse,  Lord  of  the  Manor, 
I  do  not  know,  but  there  was  a  mill  there  in  1759, 
which,  with  house,  farm,  and  bridge,  was  "  to  be  let, 
and  entered  upon  immediately,"  in  April  of  that  year, 
on  application  to  "  the 
Manor  of  Phillipsburg, 
in  the  county  of  West- 
chester,"  now  the  city 
of  Yonkers.  Presuma- 
bly the  mill  ground 
wheat  and  corn  for  the  PHILLIPSE  MANOR-HOUSE 

farmers  of  that  county 

and  of  the  upper  part  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan. 
My  correspondent  writes  the  name  of  the  famous 
stream  at  Kingsbridge  Spuyt-den-Duyvil,  and  it  is 
curious  to  note  the  variety  of  spelling  to  which  this 
Rubicon  of  Anthony  the  trumpeter  has  been  subject- 
ed. Prior  to  1693  there  was  no  bridge  across  the 
stream,  but  in  January  of  that  year  the  Colonial 
Council  met  to  consider  the  offer  of  Frederick  Phil- 
lipse the  elder  to  build  a  bridge  at  "  Spikendevil " 
for  the  convenience  of  "  cattell  "  and  "  waggons,"  as 
well  as  the  general  public.  This  was  the  only  bridge 
connecting  the  Island  of  Manhattan  with  the  main- 
land for  sixty  years.  Madam  Knight,  in  her  journal 

18 


274  A  TOUR   AROUND  NEW  YORK 

of  1704,  recounting  her  journey  from  New  York  to 
New  Haven  in  December  of  that  year,  says  that  about 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  "  we  came  to  the  Half- 
way House,  about  ten  miles  out  of  town,  where  we 
baited  and  went  forward,  and  about  five  came  to  Spit- 
ing Devil,  else  Kingsbridge,  where  they  pay  three- 
pence for  passing  over  with  a  horse,  which  the  man 
that  keeps  the  gate  set  up  at  the  end  of  the  bridge 
receives."  This  Half-way  House  stood  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  hill  on  the  old  Middle  Road,  about  One 
Hundred  and  Seventh  Street,  between  the  line  of 
Fifth  and  Sixth  avenues.  The  only  road  to  Boston 
then,  and  a  rough  one  it  was,  led  across  the  island  to 
Kingsbridge,  and  here  the  gates  were  locked  and  barred 
at  night,  and  people  stood  and  knocked  until  a  servant 
came  from  the  farm-house  fifteen  rods  distant.  It 
was  a  monopoly,  and  a  grievous  one.  So  oppressive 
did  it  become  that  in  1759  Benjamin  Palmer  built  a 
free  bridge  across  the  creek  just  above  the  old  bridge, 
from  Thomas  Vermilia's  land  to  the  farm  of  Jacob 
Dyckman,  and  all  New  York  celebrated  the  event  by 
eating  "  a  stately  ox  roasted  whole  "  on  the  Bowling 
Green.  This  took  place  during  the  French  and  Ind- 
ian War,  and  Palmer  made  a  charge  that  Colonel  Phil- 
lipse  had  him  twice  drafted  as  a  soldier  in  order  to  kill 
the  project,  and  compelled  him  to  pay  £$  for  a  sub- 
stitute on  the  first  occasion  and  £20  on  the  second. 
During  the  war  for  independence  the  British  burned 
the  free  bridge  in  order  to  prevent  the  passage  of  the 
American  army  across  the  river,  the  original  bridge  at 
this  point  being  defended  by  a  redoubt. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  that  but  a  single  generation 
can  span  all  the  years  between  the  days  of  George 


A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  275 

Washington  and  to-day,  and  that  the  sons  of  men 
who  fought  in  the  Revolution  are  moving  among  us 
in  hale  and  hearty  old  age.  Somehow,  although  in 
boyhood  I  have  talked  of  those  days  with  a  score  who 
had  wielded  the  sword  or  borne  the  flintlock  in  the 
war  for  independence,  the  scenes  and  men  who  made 
our  country's  history  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  last 
century  seem  to  have  been  immeasurably  removed 
from  us  by  the  mighty  tragedy  of  our  war  between 
the  States.  But  these  modern  memories  were  all 
swept  away  by  a  letter  which  has  come  to  me  from 
the  son  of  an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  Army,  who 
was  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  procession  that  en- 
tered New  York  in  triumph  on  November  25,  1783, 
the  day  of  the  city's  evacuation  by  the  British  troops. 
Col.  Christian  S.  Delavan  writes  me  : 

We — myself  and  my  brothers — commenced  keeping  a  hard- 
ware and  furnishing  store  in  the  year  1826,  and  continued  so 
from  that  year  until  1849.  '  During  many  of  those  years  Peter 
Cooper  often  drove  from  his  glue  factory,  in  the  rear  of  his 
house,  north-east  corner  of  Fourth  Avenue  and  Twenty  eighth 
Street,  and  came  to  have  a  chat  with  us.  In  your  ramblings 
on  Washington  Heights  you  spoke  of  General  Washington 
and  his  staff  entering  New  York  from  that  point,  and  the 
British  withdrawing  their  lines  as  he  advanced  and  finally  em- 
barking at  the  Battery.  It  was  my  father,  Captain  Delavan, 
who,  with  his  light -horse  company,  led  the  advance  of  the 
patriot  column  into  the  city.  He,  with  the  other  officers,  par- 
took of  a  grand  dinner  at  the  old  tavern  (still  standing)  at  the 
corner  of  Pearl  and  Broad  streets.  My  brother  Charles  and 
myself,  fast  approaching  the  eighties,  are  the  only  two  living 
representatives  of  those  who  participated  in  that  glorious  event 
that  gave  us  a  country  free  from  a  foreign  foe. 

A  correspondent  sends  the  following  incident,  which 


WASHINGTON    HOUSE,    FOOT   OF   BROADWAY 


dates  back  half  a  century,  as  illustrative  of  Gouverneur 
Morris  and  his  times : 

During  harvest  time,  a  few  years  only  before  your  first  visit 
to  Harlem,  an  English  nobleman  whose  ancestral  patent  of  no- 
bility dated  back  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  visited  this  coun- 
try and  became  the  guest  of  Judge  William  Jay,  of  Bedford, 
Westchester  County,  who  entertained  him  most  royally,  also 
making  calls  with  him  upon  the  surrounding  lords  of  the 
manor,  such  as  the  Livingstons,  Van  Rensselaers,  and  Schuy- 
lers  to  the  north,  and  the  Van  Cortlandts,  Morrises,  and  Stuy- 
vesants  to  the  south.  One  bright  morning  in  July  the  patroon, 
Jay,  with  his  English  guest,  left  Bedford  in  the  judge's  travel- 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK  277 

ling  carriage  to  introduce  the  nobleman  to  his  brother  patroon, 
Gouverneur  Morris.  They  reached  the  Manor-house  just  be- 
fore noon,  and  as  they  drove  to  the  door  met  the  patroon  him- 
self, in  his  shirt-sleeves,  minus  coat  and  vest,  with  trousers 
tucked  into  his  boots  and  a  scythe  over  his  shoulder,  rills  of 
perspiration  running  down  his  manly  face,  and  his  lordly 
brow  crowned  with  an  old  straw-hat  with  a  hole  in  the  top, 
through  which  protruded  the  end  of  a  red  bandanna  handker- 
chief. At  his  heels  were  a  little  army  of  laborers,  bearing  their 
scythes,  and  also  fresh  from  the  meadows  where  they  had  been 
mowing.  The  welcome  dinner-bell  had  summoned  them.  It 
was  a  revelation  to  the  English  nobleman,  but  when  he  had 
seated  himself  at  the  hospitable  table  of  his  host  he  forgot  all 
about  it.  For  Mr.  Morris  was  a  lover  of  the  classics  as  well 
as  of  nature,  and  could  not  only  lead  the  field  with  his  scythe, 
but  could  recite  whole  books  of  Virgil  by  heart. 

It  has  been  a  pleasure  to  sit  down  and  converse 
on  paper  with  these  unknown  correspondents,  whose 
name  is  almost  legion,  and  whose  letters  have  been  a 
constant  source  of  encouragement,  and  also  a  revela- 
tion of  patriotism  and  local  pride  that  was  totally  un- 
suspected. Instead  of  being  given  up  to  money,  fash- 
ion, and  pleasure,  the  genuine  New  Yorker  possesses 
underneath  his  quiet  exterior  a  heart  that  pulsates  to 
the  history,  the  growth,  and  the  grandeur  of  his  city. 
He  may  not  wear  it  on  his  sleeve,  yet  it  is  there.  His 
patriotism,  indeed,  is  a  good  deal  like  old  Bishop  Gris- 
wold's  religion.  When  that  saintly  man  of  God  was 
bishop  of  the  Eastern  Diocese  —  Massachusetts  and 
Maine — an  ardent  young  preacher  made  up  his  mind 
that  as  an  Episcopalian  the  bishop  must  be  destitute 
of  "  vital  godliness,"  and  he  concluded  that  he  would 
go  and  convert  him.  The  bishop  received  him  kindly, 
and,  on  making  known  his  mission,  invited  him  to  his 


278 


A    TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


study,  asked  him  to  be  seated,  and  told  him  that  he 
was  ready  to  listen.  "  Bishop,  have  you  got  religion?" 
the  young  man  asked,  with  great  solemnity.  "  None 
to  speak  of,"  responded  the  bishop,  quietly,  as  he  sat 
twiddling  his  thumbs,  as  was  his  custom.  The  ardent 
evangelist  paused,  pondered,  struck  his  colors,  apolo- 
gized, and  left  the  house  convinced  that  true  religion 
did  not  consist  mainly  in  talk. 

Yesterday  I  stood  in  front  of  the  old  Stryker  man- 
sion, at  the  foot  of  Fifty-second  Street  and  the  North 


THE    STRYKER   HOMESTEAD 


River,  and  marked  the  changes  and  ravages  that  time 
had  wrought.  I  had  known  the  house  when  it  was 
the  seat  of  an  extensive  and  always  hearty  hospitali- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  279 

ty,  and  when  it  was  one  of  the  conspicuous  country, 
seats  on  the  lower  outskirts  of  Bloomingdale,  having 
a  pedigree  and  history  of  its  own.  The  old  Stryker 
homestead  still  stands,  but  it  is  shorn  of  its  former 
glory.  Tenements  and  stables  hedge  it  in  on  either 
side,  and  docks  and  lumber-yards  occupy  the  place 
where  its  green  lawn  used  to  stretch  down  to  the  river- 
edge.  Near  by  the  Stryker  mansion  was  the  Hopper 
house.  The  two  farms  were  adjoining,  and  the  fami- 
lies naturally  became  allied  by  marriage.  It  is  not  ten 
years  since  the  burial-ground  of  the  Hopper  family 
stood  twenty  feet  above  the  level  of  the  street,  at  the 
corner  of  Ninth  Avenue  and  Fiftieth  Street,  an  open, 
desolate,  unshaded  piece  of  ground,  sown  with  gray 
tombstones,  on  the  nearest  of  which  the  passenger 
could  read  that  it  was  "  sacred  to  the  memory  of  An- 
drew Hopper."  The  stout  old  farmer,  who  had  never 
dreamed  that  the  little  city  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
island  would  ever  come  knocking  at  his  doors  and  bid- 
ding him  move  on,  had  gone  comfortably  to  sleep  in 
the  belief  that  his  worn-out  body  would  rest  undis- 
turbed in  the  sight  of  the  fields  he  had  tilled  and  the 
river  in  which  he  had  sported  in  his  boyhood. 

I  think  there  is  nothing  sadder  in  the  story  of  our 
famous  houses  than  the  history  of  Richmond  Hill.  Of 
its  ancient  glories  I  have  heard  from  my  grandmother, 
who  had  been  a  guest  within  its  walls  when  it  was  the 
seat  of  culture  and  refinement.  I  remember  the  mansion 
as  a  ruin,  when,  after  it  had  been  opened  for  a  first-class 
theatre,  it  had  passed  through  the  gradations  of  circus 
and  menagerie,  and  finally  had  been  abandoned.  It 
then  stood  on  the  line  of  Charlton  Street,  some  twenty 
feet  from  Varick,  still  wearing  the  adornment  of  por- 


RICHMOND    HILL 


tico  and  columns,  having  been  removed  there  from  its 
old  foundations  at  the  intersection  of  those  two  streets. 
Built  by  Major  Mortier,  an  English  officer,  ten  years 
anterior  to  the  Revolution,  Washington  with  his  fam- 
ily occupied  the  house  in  1776,  whence  he  removed 
his  headquarters  to  the  Roger  Morris  house,  near  what 
was  then  known  as  the  Point  of  Rocks.  Then  British 
officers  came  into  possession.  During  the  first  year  of 
the  Government  under  the  Constitution,  while  Wash- 
ington held  his  Republican  Court  in  Franklin  Square, 
Vice-president  Adams  occupied  the  Richmond  Hill 
house  and  estate,  of  which  Mrs.  Adams  wrote  tp  her 
sister  that  "  Nature  had  so  lavishly  displayed  her  beau- 
ties that  she  has  left  scarcely  anything  for  her  hand- 
maid, Art,  to  perform." 

It  was  a  beautiful  spot  then.  In  front  there  was 
nothing  to  obstruct  the  view  of  the  Hudson.  To  the 
right  fertile  meadows  stretched  up  towards  the  little 


A    TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  281 

hamlet  of  Greenwich  Village,  and  on  the  left  the  view 
of  the  little  city  in  the  distance  was  half  hidden  by 
clumps  of  trees  and  rising  hills.  There  was  a  broad  en- 
trance to  the  house,  under  a  porch  of  imposing  height, 
supported  by  high  columns,  with  balconies  fronting 
the  rooms  of  the  second  story.  The  premises  were  en- 
tered by  a  spacious  gateway,  flanked  by  ornamental 
columns,  at  what  is  now  the  termination  of  Macdougal 
Street.  Within  the  gate  and  to  the  north  was  a  beau- 
tiful sheet  of  water,  known  to  men  who  are  still  living 
and  who  skated  on  its  frozen  surface  when  they  were 
urchins1  of  tender  years,  as  Burr's  Pond.  For,  after  all, 
the  chief  renown  of  Richmond  Hill  is  that  it  was  for 
ten  years  the  home  of  Aaron  Burr,  and  that  here  the 
lovely  and  ill-fated  Theodosia,  his  daughter,  on  whom 
her  father  lavished  the  love  of  his  life,  dispensed  a 
charming  hospitality.  The  guests  were  the  most  emi- 
nent men  and  women  of  the  Old  World  and  the  New. 
Talleyrand,  Volney,  Louis  Philippe,  Brant,  the  Indian 
chieftain;  senators,  ambassadors,  authors  —  all  were 
alike  charmed  with  the  graceful  manners  of  Theodo- 
sia Burr  and  the  stately  hospitality  of  the  home  over 
which  she  presided.  No  man  in  all  the  land  was  then 
more  highly  honored  than  Aaron  Burr,  Senator  and 
Vice-president,  whose  military  record  had  been  brill- 
iant beyond  comparison,  and  to  whom  the  country, 
for  which  he  had  perilled  his  life,  delighted  to  point 
as  one  of  its  chief  civic  ornaments.  With  his  fall, 
crushed  with  his  daughter's  loss,  the  glory  of  Rich- 
mond Hill  departed  forever. 

Another  old  mansion  whose  features  remain  im- 
pressed on  my  memory  was  the  house  built  by  Ad- 
miral Sir  Peter  Warren  in  1740  on  the  banks  of  the 


282  A    TOUR   AROUND   NEW    YORK 

Hudson,  several  miles  away  from  the  city.  It  stood 
near  the  intersection  of  Charles  and  Bleecker  streets, 
and  when  it  was  erected  and  the  grounds  laid  out,  its 
beautiful  lawns  reached  down  to  the  river,  and  there 
was  no  other  house  within  the  radius  of  a  mile  to  in- 
tercept the  view.  Here,  when  the  smallpox  was  raging 
in  the  little  city,  whose  outer  boundary  was  just  above 
Wall  Street,  Sir  Peter  Warren  invited  the  Colonial 
Assembly  to  meet  and  escape  the  plague  by  adjourn- 
ing to  the  country.  The  admiral,  forgotten  in  the 
present  day,  was  a  great  man  in  the  colony,  and  quite 
as  influential  during  the  administration  of  Clinton  as 
the  Governor  himself.  Time  could  not  spare  the  hero 
of  Louisbourg,  but  it  is  a  pity  that  man  could  not  have 
spared  the  splendid  avenues  of  locusts  which  Sir  Peter 
had  planted  with  his  own  hand,  and  which  were  cut 
down  in  the  summer  of  1865,  when  the  old  house  was 
demolished. 

In  the  near  neighborhood  of  the  Warren  mansion 
was  the  old  Spencer  homestead,  at  the  corner  of 
Fourth  and  West  Tenth  streets.  It  was  erected  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century  by  Garrett  Gilbert,  a  well- 
known  character  of  that  day,  who  soon  ran  through 
his  fortune  and  put  his  homestead  up  for  sale.  If  a 
spendthrift,  however,  he  was  possessed  of  taste,  and 
his  cottage,  with  its  peaked  roof  and  veranda  front, 
was  considered  at  the  time  the  most  beautiful  of  the 
city's  suburban  residences.  The  grounds  were  laid  out 
with  great  taste,  abounding  in  flowers  and  fruit-trees ; 
and  the  fish-ponds  in  them,  fed  from  a  number  of  cis- 
terns, were  the  marvel  of  the  day.  When  the  estate 
was  sold,  Senator  Marcus  Spencer  became  its  pur- 
chaser, and  the  house  went  by  his  name  afterwards, 


1.  Battery       2.  Castle  Williams       5.  Governor's  Island       U.  3-Gun  Battery 
FORTIFICATIONS    AROUND   NEW   YORK — 1814 


284  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

and  is  commemorated  by  the  present  Spencer  Place. 
During  the  prevalence  of  the  yellow-fever  in  1822  the 
city  Post-office  was  temporarily  established  at  this 
building,  but  was  subsequently  removed  to  the  corner 
of  Asylum  (now  Fourth)  and  Bank  streets.  A  few 
representatives  of  the  magnificent  trees  which  once 
surrounded  the  house  are  still  standing  in  West  Tenth 
Street ;  and  after  the  Spencer  mansion  was  torn  down, 
in  1872,  Dr.  Hall,  the  Senator's  son-in-law,  enclosed  a 
large  portion  of  the  old  garden,  which  lay  in  the  inte- 
rior of  the  block,  as  a  garden  for  his  residence  in  West 
Tenth  Street,  and  there  it  still  lies  hidden  from  the 
public  eye,  bright  with  flowers  and  shaded  by  ancient 
trees,  a  mute  memorial  of  the  last  of  the  old  home- 
steads below  the  homes  of  the  Strykers  and  Hoppers. 
'  If  the  old  historic  houses  of  New  York  cannot  be 
preserved,  and  all  seem  doomed  to  pass  under  the 
hammer  of  the  auctioneer,  it  would  appear  that  meas- 
ures ought  to  be  taken  to  preserve  the  relics  of  old 
Revolutionary  fortifications.  A  generation  ago  the 
upper  part  of  the  island  was  fairly  covered  with  the 
remains  of  earthworks  and  redoubts,  most  of  them 
outlined  with  much  distinctness ;  and  there  are  octo- 
genarian citizens  still  living  who  as  boys  played  in  the 
ditches  and  on  the  embankments  of  the  fort  erected 
on  the  hill  just  west  of  Broadway,  between  Spring  and 
Prince  streets.  The  hand  of  the  builder  has  levelled 
most  of  these  remains.  Tenth  Avenue,  at  Two  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty-sixth  Street,  runs  through  the  site  of 
Fort  Prince,  which  guarded  the  approaches  to  Kings' 
Bridge.  The  redoubts  that  crossed  Eleventh  and 
Twelfth  avenues  at  One  Hundred  and  Sixtieth  street 
have  disappeared,  as  has  also  Cock  Hill  Fort,  that 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  285 

overlooked  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek  at  Two  Hundred 
and  Seventeenth  Street.  On  Washington  Heights  are 
still  to  be  seen  the  grassy  embankments  that  marked 
the  Citadel  of  Fort  Washington,  captured  by  the  Brit- 
ish, and  rechristened  Fort  Knyphausen  in  honor  of 
the  Hessian  general  whose  mercenaries  had  led  the 
storming  party,  and  the  outlines  of  Fort  Tryon,  half 
a  mile  above,  can  also  be  traced.  It  will  be  a  pity  if 
those  who  have  charge  of  what  they  are  pleased  to 
style  street  improvements  are  permitted  to  obliterate 
these  monuments  of  our  past  glory,  and  the  home  of 
the  parvenu  shall  cover  the  spot  where  bayonets  were 
crossed  in  deadly  conflict,  and  the  men  of  '76  fell  in 
slaughtered  heaps  in  defence  of  the  liberties  of  the 
colonies. 

The  Revolutionary  fortifications  that  stretched  from 
the  mouth  of  Turtle  Creek  up  through  McGowan's 
Pass  disappeared  long  ago,  and  the  later  earthworks 
thrown  up  there  in  1812,  and  which  I  remember  to 
have  seen  in  my  boyhood,  have  also  gone  the  way  of 
the  past.  There  are  men  still  living  who  helped  to 
erect  these  fortifications,  and  who  have  lived  to  see 
their  demolition.  Not  many  of  these  veterans  are 
left,  but  we  old  boys  can  remember  when  they  were 
of  little  account,  and  the  survivors  of  the  war  of  the 
Revolution  were  looked  upon  as  the  country's  real 
heroes.  One  of  these  soldiers  of  three-quarters  of  a 
century  ago,  Col.  Charles  B.  Tappan,  belonged  to  the 
volunteer  company  commanded  by  Capt.  (afterwards 
Judge)  Robert  Emmett.  He  has  a  very  vivid  recol- 
lection of  the  march  to  Yorkville  Heights,  where  they 
were  ordered  to  report  at  sunrise,  and  of  digging  in- 
trenchments  by  day  in  the  hot  sun  and  mounting 


286  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

guard  on  dark  and  rainy  nights.  Every  able-bodied 
man  from  the  age  of  eighteen  to  forty-five  was  re- 
quired to  attend  daily  drill,  and  28,000  men  were  con- 
stantly under  arms  to  repel  an  invasion  of  the  enemy. 
Another  old  friend,  who  was  a  butcher's  apprentice  in 
those  stirring  days,  pointed  out  to  me  in  after-years 
the  remains  of  a  redoubt  which  he  had  helped  to  build 
on  the  right  of  McGowan's  Pass.  It  seems  that  the 
boys  became  inoculated  with  the  martial  fever,  and 
they  held  a  meeting  in  Bayard  Street,  where  fiery 
speeches  were  made  and  resolutions  were  passed  offer- 
ing the  services  of  one  hundred  boys,  ready  to  march 
at  the  beat  of  the  drum.  Their  proffer  was  accepted, 
and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  colors  flying, 
a  band  of  music  playing,  and  citizens  shouting,  the 
bold  soldier  boys  set  out  for  the  front — at  Yorkville. 
They  had  not  forgotten  creature  comforts,  for  a  huge 
wagon  followed  them  laden  with  the  best  that  the 
market  afforded.  Breakfast  was  first  in  order,  and 
then  the  boys  set  to  work  in  earnest,  and  at  sunset 
had  thrown  up  a  breastwork  one  hundred  feet  in 
length,  twenty  in  breadth,  and  four  feet  high,  sodded 
completely.  In  the  centre  of  the  ramparts  the  boys 
set  their  flag,  which  bore  on  its  white  ground  the  in- 
scription : 

"  Free  trade  and  butchers'  rights, 
From  Brooklyn's  Fields  to  Harlem  Heights." 

Then,  having  hailed  it  with  nine  hearty  cheers,  they 
marched  back  to  the  Bowery,  with  drums  beating  and 
colors  flying,  and  ate  and  slept  as  only  boys  can. 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK  287 


CHAPTER    XXIII 

POLITICIANS  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME — SAMUEL  SWARTWOUT'S  STRANGE 
CAREER  —  THURLOW  WEED  AND  HORATIO  SEYMOUR  —  STATESMEN 
OF  THE  NEW  SCHOOL — HARMONY  IN  OLD  TAMMANY  HALL 

A  BIT  of  wisdom  which  fell  from  the  lips  of  Mr. 
Pickwick,  and  which  Count  Smorltork  eagerly  caught 
up  and  transferred  to  his  tablets  as  "  ver  good — fine 
words  to  begin  a  chapter,"  read  in  its  transferred  con- 
dition as  follows :  "  The  word  poltic  surprises  by  him- 
self '  a  difficult  study  of  no  inconsiderable  magni- 
tude.' "  While  this  is  true,  no  reminiscence  of  the 
city  of  half  a  century  ago  would  be  complete  that  did 
not  revive  the  memories  of  the  politicians  of  that  day. 
They  are  worth  remembering,  too.  "  There  were  gi- 
ants in  the  earth  in  those  days,"  and  zealous  partisans 
though  they  were,  their  patriotism  no  less  than  their 
abilities  made  them  men  of  mark  in  the  land.  De 
Witt  Clinton  thought  it  an  honor  to  be  an  alderman 
of  New  York,  and  when  the  Golden  Age  returns,  in 
which  such  men  as  he  shall  again  be  willing  to  take 
up  the  burdens  of  office,  the  era  of  political  rings  and 
jobs  will  pass  away. 

"  Old  Hickory,"  "  the  Fox  of  Kinderhook,"  "  Tip- 
pecanoe  and  Tyler  too,"  and  "the  Mill  Boy  of  the 
Slashes  "  are  among  my  early  recollections  of  political 
badges  and  war  cries.  I  remember  often  to  have  seen 
famous  Sam  Swartwout,  whom  Andrew  Jackson  be- 


288  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

queathed  as  a  legacy  to  his  successor,  extracting  a 
promise  from  Mr.  Van  Buren  that  he  should  not  be 
disturbed  in  his  office  of  Collector  of  the  Port  until 
his  term  had  expired.  Of  colossal  build,  erect,  and 
straight  as  an  arrow — until  age  had  bent  his  stalwart 
form  a  little  in  ripening  it  for  death's  harvest — Sam 
Swartwout  was  a  man  of  mark  when  he  passed  along 
the  street.  He  came  of  Revolutionary  stock,  and  with 
his  two  brothers  served  in  the  War  of  1812.  They 
dealt  extensively  in  paints  and  dyewoods,  and  almost 
as  largely  in  politics.  John,  the  oldest  brother,  was 
appointed  United  States  Marshal  for  this  district  by 
President  Jefferson,  but  was  removed  by  the  latter  at 
the  beginning  of  his  second  term,  when  he  made  a 
clean  sweep  of  all  the  friends  of  Aaron  Burr,  to  whom, 
when  he  was  Vice-president,  he  had  assigned  the  New 
York  appointments.  This  made  trouble  at  once. 
John  Swartwout  challenged  De  Witt  Clinton  to  mor- 
tal combat,  and  they  met  on  the  old  duelling-ground 
at  Hoboken.  The  challenger  was  brought  home  with 
a  bullet  in  his  thigh.  Richard  Riker,  afterwards  Re- 
corder of  the  city,  and  known  in  political  and  social 
tradition  as  "  Dickey  "  Riker,  made  some  unpalatable 
criticism  upon  the  matter,  and  was  promptly  chal- 
lenged by  Robert  Swartwout.  They  met  on  the  field 
of  honor  across  the  Hudson,  and  Mr.  Riker  was  wound- 
ed so  severely  that  he  limped  to  the  close  of  his  life. 
It  was  an  era  of  personal  responsibility.  Men  were 
held  to  strict  account  for  their  criticism  of  contempo- 
raries, and  such  an  exchange  of  epithets  as  in  these 
later  days  at  times  distinguishes  our  deliberative  bod- 
ies would  then  have  led  to  a  fusillade  that  would  have 
made  a  battle-field  of  City  Hall  or  State  Capitol.  The 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  289 

invitation  to  step  over  to  Hoboken  and  adjust  matters 
with  a  pair  of  pistols  was,  of  course,  a  barbarity,  but 
it  led  to  a  remarkable  politeness  and  a  discriminating 
choice  of  words  in  public  speech  or  written  document. 
Even  then  a  challenge  was  liable  to  be  sent  on  gen- 
eral principles,  and  it  could  not  be  refused.  Bernard, 
the  actor,  in  his  autobiographical  account  of  a  visit 
paid  to  New  York  in  the  early  part  of  the  century, 
speaks  of  a  call  made  upon  him  at  his  hotel  by  Mr. 
Coleman,  editor  of  The  Evening  Post.  After  an  hour's 
pleasant  chat,  the  editor  excused  himself  on  the  score 
of  an  engagement,  and  it  was  not  until  the  next  day 
that  Mr.  Bernard  learned  that  the  engagement  in  ques- 
tion was  an  invitation  to  fight  a  duel  at  Hoboken.  It 
was  a  matter  of  course,  the  custom  of  the  day ;  and 
politicians,  journalists,  and  even  men  of  business  (like 
Robert  Swartwout,  who  was  a  merchant,  and  was  wed- 
ded to  Miss  Dunscombe  at  the  house  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  Philip  Hone),  were  ready  to  maintain  their 
opinions  with  powder  and  ball. 

At  this  time  Samuel  Swartwout,  the  youngest  of 
the  brothers,  was  in  the  South  with  Aaron  Burr.  De- 
voted to  the  fortunes  of  that  adventurous  pioneer  of 
a  new  empire,  he  had  gone  with  him  to  the  South- 
west to  assist  in  setting  up  a  new  field  of  rule  and 
conquest  on  the  Mexican  border.  When  Burr  was 
on  trial  at  Richmond,  Samuel  Swartwout  was  there  as 
his  private  secretary  and  friend,  and  became  the  sharer 
of  his  prison.  As  ready  as  his  brothers  for  the  trial 
by  combat,  he  sent  a  challenge  to  General  Wilkinson, 
and  when  the  latter  declined  to  receive  it,  on  the 
ground  that  he  would  not  hold  correspondence  with 
traitors  and  conspirators,  the  ardent  challenger  prompt- 


290  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

ly  posted  him  as  a  coward  and  poltroon.  Released 
and  returning  to  this  city,  he  served  in  1812  as  ad- 
jutant of  the  celebrated  Irish  Greens,  and  afterwards 
did  duty  on  the  staff  of  General  Jackson  at  the  battle 
of  New  Orleans.  It  was  the  friendship  which  Jack- 
son conceived  for  stalwart  Sam  Swartwout  that  made 
the  latter  Collector  of  the  Port,  and  kept  him  in  office 
eight  years  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  Tammany  Hall. 
When  it  came  to  the  case  of  his  personal  friends, 
"  Old  Hickory  "  was  immovable. 

I  never  cross  the  meadows  beyond  Bergen  Hill  but 
the  memory  of  the  Swartwouts  comes  back  to  me. 
They  dreamed,  seventy  years  ago,  that  these  meadows 
might  be  reclaimed  and  made  a  vast  market -garden 
to  supply  the  metropolis.  With  them  to  think  was  to 
act.  They  purchased  4200  acres  of  the  salt-marsh  in 
1815.  It  was  subject  to  overflow  by  the  tides  and 
was  mostly  under  water.  Business  men  regarded  the 
scheme  as  visionary  and  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  But  the  brothers  were  rich  men  for  that 
day,  and  John  Swartwout  did  not  hesitate  to  embark 
every  penny  of  his  $200,000  in  the  speculation.  They 
went  sturdily  to  work,  built  ten  miles  of  embankment, 
dug  100  miles  of  ditch,  reclaimed  1500  acres  of  solid 
ground,  and  announced  that  they  would  raise  upon 
these  resurrected  fields  all  the  vegetables  that  would 
ever  be  needed  in  New  York.  Three  years  of  this 
work  absorbed  their  money  and  broke  up  their  regu- 
lar business.  But  Robert  secured  the  appointment 
of  Naval  Agent,  and  the  brothers  went  ahead  with 
unwavering  faith.  At  the  close  of  another  year  they 
applied  to  the  city  corporation  for  aid,  but  it  was  re- 
fused. Then,  still  believing  that  there  were  "  millions 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  291 

in  it,"  they  mortgaged  everything  and  kept  on.  As 
a  last  resort,  they  sent  their  maps  and  plans  to  Hol- 
land, in  the  hope  that  they  would  interest  the  Dutch 
devotees  of  canals,  but  this  proved  a  failure  also. 
The  brothers  were  impoverished,  and  the  swamp — ex- 
cept the  district  they  reclaimed — is  still  a  prey  to  the 
sea.  When  in  summer  the  train  dashes  across  the 
miles  of  swamp  land  beyond  Hoboken,  and  the  long, 
salt  grass,  jewelled  with  wild  flowers  of  brilliant  hue, 
sways  and  tosses  to  the  breath  of  the  wind,  it  seems 
to  me  as  I  look  out  from  the  car  window  as  if  the 
wild  roses  and  the  meadow-grasses  were  growing  over 
the  graves  of  those  buried  hopes  of  seventy  years 
ago.  Perhaps,  though,  like  all  such  failures,  it  is  but 
the  seed  of  future  success.  The  pioneer  never  reaps 
the  harvest. 

Another  old-time  politician  whom  I  remember  was 
Churchill  C.  Cambreling.  One  of  the  most  distin- 
guished of  the  commercial  representatives  of  the  city 
in  his  day,  he  has  been  forgotten  this  many  a  year. 
Courteous,  refined,  and  accomplished,  few  men  of  his 
day  exerted  a  more  powerful  influence  here  or  at 
Washington.  Nine  times  he  was  elected  to  Congress, 
where  he  served  on  the  most  important  committees, 
and  Monroe,  Jackson,  and  Van  Buren  eagerly  sought 
his  aid  and  counsel.  President  Van  Buren  appointed 
him  Minister  to  Russia,  and  this  was  the  close  of  his  po- 
litical career.  I  have  instanced  the  case  of  Mr.  Cam- 
breling to  show  how  fleeting  is  political  fame.  The 
man  whom  the  whole  city  delighted  to  honor  has 
now  no  place  in  the  city's  memory.  His  successor  in 
Congress,  Mike  Walsh,  has  been  better  remembered, 
and  traditions  of  his  political  powers  are  still  told 


292  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

around  the  watch-fires  of  the  clans.  It  was  he  who 
said  that  "  Any  dead  fish  can  swim  with  the  current, 
but  it  takes  a  live  fish  to  swim  against  it,"  and  that 
"  It  requires  more  statesmanship  to  cross  Broadway 
at  Fulton  Street  than  to  be  a  Representative  in  Con- 
gress from  a  rural  district." 

Forty  years  ago  I  met  Thurlow  Weed  for  the  first 
time,  in  the  island  of  Santa  Cruz,  where  he  was  win- 
tering for  his  health,  and  had  interested  himself  in  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  in  that  island.  Outside  of 
politics,  I  knew  him  well  afterwards.  On  the  subject 
of  politics  he  was  inscrutable.  He  counselled  with 
no  one,  but  made  his  own  plans  and  had  them  exe- 
cuted. Whether  his  influence  was  for  good  or  evil  is 
not  a  matter  for  discussion  here.  In  his  peculiar  role 
of  Warwick  the  king-maker  he  has  had  no  successor. 
I  found  him  at  his  best  in  his  talks  about  literature. 

When  wise  King  Solomon  remarked  that  there  was 
nothing  new  under  the  sun,  he  might  have  included 
politics,  though  politics  was  not  much  of  a  business 
in  his  day.  Thrones  sometimes  went  the  way  of  a 
Broadway  railroad  franchise,  and  were  privately  sold 
to  the  highest  bidder,  but  the  sword  usually  settled 
all  disputes.  This  latter  method  had  the  advantage 
of  largely  reducing  the  number  of  political  aspirants 
and  of  occasionally  exterminating  the  entire  opposi- 
tion, root  and  branch,  or,  speaking  politically,  primary 
and  convention  —  thus  leaving  quiet  folk  a  better 
chance  of  fireside  peace  and  comfort.  In  our  day 
history  continually  repeats  itself  in  politics  as  in  other 
phases  of  public  life.  Prophets  have  arisen  who  pro- 
claim the  wonderful  discovery  of  a  new  and  original 
panacea  for  the  ills  of  mankind.  They  promise  to 


TAMMANY    HALL,   1811 

abolish  poverty,  to  banish  thorns  and  thistles,  and 
make  the  land  bring  forth  nothing  but  grapes  and 
olives,  and  to  create  a  millennium  through  the  ballot. 
They  feed  on  ashes.  Their  pretended  patent  is  but 
the  antiquated  prescription  of  dead  and  buried  quacks 
— moth-eaten  and  ghostly  in  its  flimsiness.  Sixty 
years  ago,  in  1827,  Fanny  Wright,  the  famous  free- 

19* 


294  A   TOUR  AROUND  NEW   YORK   * 

thinker  and  land-reformer,  and  William  Cobbett,  the 
radical  writer  and  member  of  the  British  Parliament, 
came  to  New  York  and  ventilated  their  peculiar  views 
to  large  audiences  that  were  chiefly  composed  of  arti- 
sans and  laborers.  Their  promise  of  a  restored  Eden, 
in  which  land  and  wealth  should  be  held  in  common, 
was  so  captivating  that  they  were  able  to  organize 
an  enthusiastic  Labor  Party  in  this  city,  which  was  so 
successful  that  it  sent  Ely  Moore  to  Congress  as  its 
standard-bearer.  But  in  two  or  three  years  it  ceased 
to  exist  as  an  organization,  having  become  merged 
into  the  old  Jacksonian  Democratic  Party,  upon  whose 
policy  it  ingrafted  in  some  measure  its  peculiar  politi- 
cal views.  A  similar  fate  is  likely  to  befall  the  pres- 
ent labor  movement — or  at  least  that  part  of  it  which 
proposes  to  undertake  the  job  of  reforming  that  por- 
tion of  creation  which  President  Zachary  Taylor  des- 
ignated as  "all  the  world  and  the  rest  of  mankind." 
What  the  genius  of  Fanny  Wright  and  the  brain  of 
William  Cobbett  could  not  compass  cannot  be  accom- 
plished by  the  words  of  Powderly  and  McGlynn,  of 
Henry  George  and  Lucy  Parsons. 

Horatio  Seymour  used  to  say  that  the  City  of  New 
York  was  a  State  by  itself,  entirely  distinct  in  its  in- 
terests and  customs  from  the  rural  districts  of  the 
interior.  "  I  have  always  advised  candidates  for  State 
or  Federal  offices  who  do  not  belong  in  the  city,"  he 
said  to  me,  "  to  keep  away  from  New  York  while  their 
campaign  was  in  progress — a  piece  of  advice  which  I 
always  followed  in  my  own  case."  Yet  he  had  a  great 
admiration  for  the  metropolis,  and  the  number  of  his 
friends  here  was  legion.  I  recall  a  summer  afternoon 
when  I  sat  with  him  on  the  porch  of  his  home  upon 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


295 


the  slope  of  the  Deerfield  Hills,  looking  up  and  down 
the  lovely  panorama  of  the  Mohawk  Valley  —  the 
grandest  highway  of  nations  in  the  world — when  he 
gave  me  a  characteristic  chapter  of  his  experience  at 
the  hands  of  Tammany  Hall.  "  I  had  opposed  Tam- 
many," he  said,  "  in  the  domination  of  a  Judge  of  the 
Court  of  Appeals,  and  they  had  been  defeated.  The 
leaders  left  the  Convention  vowing  vengeance.  Later 
in  the  campaign  I  accepted  an  invitation  to  speak  in 
Tammany  Hall,  and  though  anticipating  a  disturbance, 
there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done  but  to  go.  When 
the  night  came  the  hall  was  crowded.  I  remarked  to 
Captain  Rynders  that  possibly  there  would  be  trouble 
when  I  spoke,  but  he  replied  that  there  was  no  dan- 


TAMMANY    HALL   IN   LATER   TIMES 


296  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

ger,  that  unity  was  the  rule  and  harmony  must  be 
preserved.  As  I  rose  to  speak  there  was  considerable 
disturbance  in  the  rear  of  the  hall.  At  the  same  time 
I  noticed  a  line  of  men  extending  from  each  farther 
corner  of  the  room  to  a  point  in  the  centre.  Each 
man  held  his  silk  hat  in  oneliand  above  the  heads  of 
the  crowd,  and  as  the  wedge-shaped  line  gradually  fell 
back  there  was  more  room  and  better  order.  After  it 
was  over  I  asked  Captain  Rynders  what  was  the 
meaning  of  the  movement.  It  appears  that  the  line 
of  men  with  silk  hats  held  aloft  was  a  phalanx  of  se- 
lect shoulder-hitters,  who  preserved  the  unities  of  their 
hats  with  the  left  hand  and  hit  out  with  the  right. 
They  had  forced  the  malcontents  to  the  rear,  then 
closed  their  lines  upon  them,  pushed  them  back  to  the 
door,  and  threw  them  down -stairs.  It  was  accom- 
plished so  quietly  and  effectively  that  the  disturbing 
element  found  itself  in  the  middle  of  the  street  before 
it  had  a  chance  to  make  a  demonstration.  '  No/  said 
Captain  Rynders  to  me,  reflectively,  '  we  never  have 
any  trouble — unity  is  the  rule  and  harmony  must  be 
preserved.'  *  But  don't  you  have  a  feud  afterwards?' 
1  Bless  your  heart,  no,  Governor ;  those  same  men 
crept  up-stairs  afterwards  like  so  many  little  lambs 
and  listened  to  you  quietly  to  the  end.  Harmony 
was  preserved,  you  see.'  " 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  297 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

PUBLIC  OPINION  OPPOSED  TO  BANKS — BIRTH  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE 
SYSTEM — THE  YELLOW-FEVER  TERROR — PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES 
— ORIGIN  OF  SOME  NEW  YORK  BANKS — CIRCUMVENTING  THE  LEG- 
ISLATURE— WILD-CAT  BANKING 

BETWEEN  the  first  establishment  of  a  banking  insti- 
tution in  this  country  and  the  national  banking  system 
lies  an  experience  in  finance  that  is  as  wonderful  as 
anything  else  in  our  history.  In  hunting  it  out,  the 
chief  miracle  seems  to  be  that  the  land  was  able  to 
achieve  even  the  least  prosperity.  At  the  beginning 
of  this  century  there  was  an  almost  unanimous  oppo- 
sition to  banks ;  now  it  seems  to  be  a  prevailing 
opinion  that  the  more  we  have  the  merrier. 

It  was  Philadelphia  that  set  New  York  the  example 
of  creating  a  bank  of  discount  and  deposit.  The 
Bank  of  North  America,  originated  by  Robert  Morris, 
Superintendent  of  Finance  for  the  United  States,  was 
incorporated  by  Congress  in  1781  and  by  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania  a  few  months  later  in  the  same  year. 
But  nothing  could  be  done  in  New  York  while  the 
British  held  possession  of  the  city,  and  it  was  not  un- 
til November  25,  1783,  that  the  English  soldiers  final- 
ly disembarked,  taking  with  them  thousands  of  Tory 
refugees.  Philadelphia  had  a  population  of  forty 
thousand  at  that  time,  and  was  regarded  as  the  future 
capital  of  the  colonies,  since  Congress  always  held  its 


298  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

sessions  there.  New  York  was  but  the  shadow  of 
the  flourishing  city  of  1776.  Its  patriotic  citizens  re- 
turned to  find  its  homes  dismantled  or  destroyed  by 
fire,  its  churches  turned  into  riding-schools  or  hospi- 
tals, and  its  commerce  gone.  But  the  spirit  of  its 
people  was  indomitable.  Though  the  population  of 
the  city  numbered  but  twenty  thousand,  and  the 
business  men  had  been  largely  impoverished  by  the 
war,  a  movement  was  started  at  once .  looking  to  the 
creation  of  a  bank.  Money  was  scarce,  and  it  was  at 
first  proposed  that  subscriptions  should  be  made  with 
one-third  money  and  two-thirds  mortgages  or*  deeds 
of  trust  on  land  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey.  Hap- 
pily wiser  counsels  prevailed,  and  at  a  meeting  held  in 
the  Merchants'  Coffee  House  on  February  26,  1784, 
the  Bank  of  New  York  was  organized,  with  a  capital 
stock  of  $500,000  in  gold  and  silver.  Major-general 
Alexander  McDougall,  a  gallant  soldier  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  President  of  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati, 
was  elected  President,  and  William  Seton,  a  shipping 
merchant  whose  sympathies  were  with  the  royal  side, 
and  who  had  remained  in  New  York  throughout  the 
war,  was  made  cashier.  In  the  first  list  of  directors 
are  the  names  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  Comfort  Sands, 
Thomas  Randall,  Nicholas  Law,  Isaac  Roosevelt,  and 
others  almost  equally  well  known  in  the  early  finan- 
cial and  commercial  history  of  the  city.  Alexander 
Hamilton  drew  up  the  constitution  and  gave  Mr. 
Seton,  who  was  not  familiar  with  the  forms  of  bank- 
ing business,  a  letter  to  the  cashier  of  the  bank  in 
Philadelphia  where  he  had  gone  to  procure  "  materials 
and  information." 

The  bank  began  business  at  the  old  Walton  House 


OLD   WALTON   HOUSE   IN    1776 


on  St.  George's  Square,  now  known  as  Franklin  Square, 
but  in  1798  it  was  removed  to  the  corner  of  Wall  and 
William  streets,  the  same  site  which  it  now  occupies. 
Wall  Street  was  then  largely  a  street  of  private  resi- 
dences. Alexander  Hamilton  had  his  modest  house 
upon  part  of  the  present  site  of  the  Mechanics'  Bank, 
and  near  by  lived  the  Verplancks,  Ludlows,  Marstons, 
and  other  families  of  social  prominence.  The  dry- 
goods  and  millinery  stores  were  in  William  Street, 
where  the  ladies  did  their  shopping.  There  was  con- 
siderable opposition  in  the  Legislature  to  the  incor- 
poration of  banking  institutions,  and  the  petition 
which  the  Bank  of  New  York  presented  in  1789  was 
unheeded,  and  while  the  Assembly  of  1790  (in  which 
my  grandfather's  grandfather  was  member  from  the 
great  county  of  Ontario,  which  then  embraced  the 
western  half  of  the  State)  passed  an  act  of  incorpora- 
tion for  the  bank,  it  was  defeated  in  the  Senate  by 
the  casting  vote  of  the  Chairman.  A  year  later  the 


300  A   TOUR  AROUND    NEW   YORK 

bank  was  successful,  and  under  these  new  auspices  it 
took  a  fresh  lease  of  life,  with  a  capital  of  $900,000 
and  with  Washington's  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  as 
its  friend  and  adviser.  But  even  great  men  are  short- 
sighted, and  on  January  18,  1791,  I  find  Alexander 
Hamilton  writing  to  Cashier  Seton  that  he  has  "learned 
with  infinite  pain  the  circumstance  of  a  new  bank 
having  started  up  in  your  city.  Its  effects  cannot  but 
be  in  every  way  pernicious.  These  extravagant  sal- 
lies of  speculation  do  injury  to  the  Government  and 
to  the  whole  system  of  public  credit,  by  disgusting  all 
sober  citizens  and  giving  a  wild  air  to  everything." 
But  the  proposed  Million  Bank,  which  Hamilton  else- 
where designates  as  a  "  newly  engendered  monster," 
failed  to  obtain  a  charter,  and  was  never  organized  for 
business. 

The  whole  city  appears  to  have  subscribed  for  the 
five-hundred-dollar  shares  of  the  Bank  of  New  York 
when  they  were  placed  on  the  market.  Among  the 
stockholders  in  1784  I  find  the  names  of  Herman  Le 
Roy,  Thomas  Ludlow,  Robert  Lenox,  Peter  Keteltas, 
John  Delafield,  Gulian  Verplanck,  Anthony  S.  Bleeck- 
er,  Peter  Schermerhorn,  Richard  Varick,  Gouverneur 
Kemble,  John  Alsop,  Josiah  Ogden  Hoffman,  Gilbert 
Aspinwall,  John  Suydam,  and  Anthony  A.  Rutgers — 
a  brave  showing  of  old  colonial  blood.  The  extremes 
of  subscriptions  were  those  of  Temperance  Green,  who 
took  twenty-five  shares,  and  the  Black  Friars'  Society, 
which  was  enrolled  for  a  one-half  share.  The  second 
name  on  the  list  was  that  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  a 
subscriber  for  one  share  and  a  half,  and  the  third  is 
that  of  Aaron  Burr,  who  took  three  shares.  It  was  a 
natural  sequence  of  names  in  that  day;  in  these  later 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


301 


times  it  looks  familiar  and  significant.  On  the  same 
roll  I  find  the  name  of  Abraham  Bradley,  a  near  rela- 
tive of  my  ancestral  member  from  Ontario,  who  was 
appointed  Assistant  Postmaster-general  by  President 
Washington,  and  held  the  office  for  forty  years.  And 
there  is  one  name  there  of  a  white-haired  soldier  of 
the  Revolution  who  used  to  take  me  on  his  knee,  and 
tell  me  of  the  wild  charge  upon  the  Hessians  at  Tren- 
ton, and  the  glorious  surrender  at  Yorktown — Major 
Jonathan  Lawrence.  So,  when  I  have  told  my  little 
boy — the  Benjamin  of  our  quiet  household  —  of  the 
carnage  I  witnessed  at  Malvern  Hill  and  Spottsyl- 
vania,  I  can  also  give  him,  as  I  heard  it  from  living 
lips,  the  story  of  the  long,  dark  years  that  stretched 


TONTINE  COFFEE-HOUSE 


302  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

between  the  fight  at  Lexington  and  the  evacuation  of 
New  York. 

Notwithstanding  the  financial  success  of  the  Bank 
of  New  York  and  its  acknowledged  convenience  to 
the  public,  there  was  wide -spread  popular  prejudice 
against  the  establishment  of  more  banks.  The  farm- 
ers were  an  important  and  growing  element  in  the 
State,  and  they  were  possessed  with  the  idea  that  the 
money  placed  in  banks  was  just  so  much  withdrawn 
from  circulation  in  the  community.  A  branch  of  the 
United  States  Bank  had  been  established  in  New 
York  City,  and  these  two  institutions  were  judged  to 
be  sufficient  for  business  purposes  for  many  years  to 
come.  But  as  it  is  the  unexpected  which  always 
happens,  so  an  unforeseen  occurrence  paved  the  way 
to  the  incorporation  of  other  banks.  The  yellow- 
fever  visited  New  York  in  1798,  and  one  of  its  earliest 
victims  was  a  book-keeper  in  the  Bank  of  New  York. 
Fearing  another  visitation  of  the  pestilence,  the  bank 
made  arrangements  with  the  branch  Bank  of  the 
United  States  to  purchase  two  plots  of  eight  city  lots 
each,  in  Greenwich  Village,  far  away  from  the  city 
proper,  to  which  they  could  remove  in  case  of  being 
placed  in.  danger  of  quarantine.  Here  two  houses 
were  erected  in  the  spring  of  1799,  and  here  the 
banks  were  removed  in  September  of  that  year,  giv- 
ing their  name,  Bank  Street,  to  the  little  village  lane 
that  had  been  nameless  before.  The  last  removal 
was  made  in  1822,  when  the  yellow-fever  raged  with 
unusual  virulence,  and  the  plot,  which  had  been  pur- 
chased for  $500,  was  sold  in  1843  f°r  $30,000. 

It  would  be  scarcely  possible  to  exaggerate  the  ter- 
ror which  pervaded  the  city  during  the  prevalence  of 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  305 

the  yellow-fever.  Colonel  Tappan,  whose  home  was 
then  in  Orchard  Street,  tells  me  that  an  iron  chain 
was  stretched  across  the  streets  at  the  Brick  Church, 
which  marked  the  boundaries  of  the  quarantine,  and 
he  has  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  sudden  and  ap- 
palling inroads  of  the  pestilence  upon  the  ranks  of 
his  stalwart  young  contemporaries.  An  old  New 
Yorker,  who  was  born  in  Greenwich  Village  in  the 
first  year  of  the  century,  and  who,  as  I  write,  in  the 
same  spot  is  passing  peacefully  down  to  the  grave, 
remembers  that  during  one  fever  summer  a  hotel  of 
rough  boards,  capable  of  holding  500  guests,  had  gone 
up  between  Saturday  and  Monday  in  a  field  where 
the  ripe  wheat  was  waving  on  Saturday.  The  city  was 
without  sewerage.  Great  gutters,  that  ran  through 
the  centre  of  the  streets,  collected  the  refuse  instead 
of  carrying  it  off,  and  left  it  festering  in  the  sun.  Pigs 
roamed  at  large,  and  cattle  were  driven  home  to  the 
stables  from  the  pasture  lots  near  Canal  Street.  Pes- 
tilence was  the  natural  result  of  the  city's  accumulated 
filth,  and  it  was  equally  natural  that  a  desire  for  sani- 
tary reform  should  follow  in  its  turn.  In  this  sanitary 
revolution  Aaron  Burr  saw  his  financial  opportunity, 
and  whispered  it  to  some  of  the  leading  merchants  of 
the  city.  The  result  was  that  a  bill  was  presented  to 
the  Legislature  in  1799  chartering  a  company  with  a 
capital  of  $2,000,000  for  the  purpose  of  introducing 
pure  water  into  the  City  of  New  York.  This  was  all 
well  enough  so  far,  but  the  true  intent  of  the  scheme 
lay  in  a  clause  providing  that  the  surplus  capital 
might  be  employed  in  "  moneyed  transactions  or 
operations  not  inconsistent  with  the  laws  and  Con- 
stitution of  the  State  of  New  York."  The  scheme 


306  A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

worked  well,  owing  to  Burr's  sagacious  leadership,  and 
the  Legislature  passed  the  bill,  with  real  or  pretended 
ignorance  of  the  effect  of  the  measure.  That  effect 
was  speedily  seen,  for  soon  after  its  charter  was  se- 
cured notice  was  given  that  the  Manhattan  Company 
would  begin  banking  operations  in  September  of  that 
year  with  a  capital  of  $500,000. 

This  was  the  only  way  to  flank  a  bitter  and  un- 
reasoning popular  prejudice.  Legislatures  were  as 
flexible  in  that  era  as  now,  and  the  lobby  was  as  po- 
tent if  less  numerous.  Chemical  works,  ship-building 
yards,  and  other  pretexts  were  used  to  charter  addi- 
tional banks.  The  great  bank  buildings  which  now 
make  Wall  Street  magnificent  are  a  glory  to  this  city 
and  a  testimony  of  what  may  be  accomplished  by 
financial  genius  and  integrity.  One  of  these  has  been 
erected  by  the  Gallatin  Bank,  which  honored  itself  in 
exchanging  its  old  name  of  National  Bank  to  one 
which  keeps  green  the  memory  of  the  greatest  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  of  this  century.  In  the  sixty 
years  of  its  existence  this  bank  has  had  but  three 
presidents,  Albert  Gallatin,  his  son, "James  Gallatin, 
and  the  present  occupant  of  the  chair,  Frederick  D. 
Tappan.  A  portrait  of  the  first  president  is  worth  a 
visit  to  see,  so  nobly  does  it  typify  the  great  men  who 
built  up  the  young  republic  into  stalwart  manhood. 

These  banks  of  an  older  day  have  had  their  defeats 
"as  well  as  their  victories.  There  lies  before  me  a  lit- 
tle newspaper,  yellowed  by  age,  that  was  issued  May 
10,  1837,  at  the  crisis  of  the  great  panic.  The  day  be- 
fore, the  Chemical  Bank,  the  "  pet  "  of  the  editor,  had 
suspended  specie  payments,  and  twenty -two  others 
had  kept  it  company.  The  community  had  lost  its 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  307 

head  in  some  respects.  The  worthy  Mayor  had 
camped  a  regiment  of  infantry  in  the  City  Hall  Park, 
and  by  way  of  a  further  precaution  against  outbreak 
he  absurdly  sent  several  men  into  Wall  Street,  bear- 
ing aloft  plaster  busts  of  the  immortal  Washington. 
The  National  Theatre  advertised  to  take  notes  of  all 
State  banks  at  par,  and  to  give  season  tickets  in  ex- 
change. "  By  gar,"  said  a  Frenchman  who  read  the 
notice  ;  "  dat  is  good.  I  have  forty  dollar — ah,  ah — 
I  shall  no  lose  my  moneys  now."  "  Keep  cool,"  is 
the  editor's  advice.  "  The  banks  will  resume  pay- 
ment ;  Martin  Van  Buren  will  be  turned  out  of  office, 
and  all  will  be  well."  How  splendidly  our  city  banks 
weathered  this  financial  hurricane  is  now  a  matter  of 
history. 

One  of  the  first  newspaper  pictures  that  I  remem- 
ber to  have  seen  represented  the  interior  of  a  wildcat 
bank  in  Indiana.  Leaning  across  the  counter,  the 
cashier  was  handing  a  $i  bill  to  a  small  boy  with  the 
impressive  exhortation,  "  Here,  boy,  run  to  the  corner 
and  get  me  a  dollar's  worth  of  silver  change.  I  ex- 
pect the  bank  examiner  to-day,  and  we  must  have 
some  silver  to  show  him."  Endless  was  the  bother 
in  my  boyhood  days  about  uncurrent  money,  coun- 
terfeit detectors,  and  bills  of  doubtful  value.  Each 
State  was  so  jealous  of  its  own  currency  that  even 
the  great  State  of  Pennsylvania  passed  a  law  placing 
a  fine  of  $5  on  any  person  who  attempted  to  put  in 
circulation  the  bank-bills  of  another  State.  I  remem- 
ber that  once  when  I  was  a  lad  at  school  in  Burling- 
ton, N.  J.,  I  went  to  Philadelphia  to  have  a  tooth 
extracted.  An  exceedingly  benevolent-looking  gen- 
tleman in  clerical  black  nearly  murdered  me  in  ac- 


308  A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

complishing  the  feat  of  extracting  the  molar,  and  I 
felt  that  he  amply  deserved  his  fee  of  fifty  cents.  In 
the  confiding  innocence  of  early  youth,  I  handed  him 
a  $2  bill  upon  one  of  the  oldest  and  safest  banks  in 
the  City  of  New  York.  The  good  man  looked  at  it 
sternly,  glanced  at  me  sadly,  and  then  remarked : 
"  Did  you  know  that  there  is  a  fine  of  $5  for  attempt- 
ing to  pass  New  York  currency  in  this  State?"  "  No," 
replied  I,  with  a  blush  and  a  shudder.  And  what  said 
the  good  man  ?  With  a  brand-new  glow  of  benevo- 
lence on  his  serene  countenance,  he  remarked,  gener- 
ously and  gushingly :  "  Well,  my  boy,  I  will  protect 
you.  I  will  keep  the  bill  myself.  Good-bye  !"  Often 
since  that  time  I  have  been  led  to  apply  to  the  two 
cities  a  remark  which  a  friend  was  accustomed  to  ap- 
ply to  Hartford  and  Providence.  "  They're  a  little 
more  pious  in  Philadelphia,  but  they're  a  little  more 
honest  in  New  York." 


VAN  CORTLANDT'S  SUGAR  HOUSE 


A  TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  309 


CHAPTER    XXV 

PUDDING  ROCK — AN  ANCIENT  SCHOOL- HOUSE — A  TEMPERANCE  HAM- 
LET GONE  WRONG  —  LANDMARKS  AND  MEMORIES  OF  THE  NEW 
PARKS  —  VAN  CORTLANDT  AND  PELHAM  BAY  —  THE  UNKNOWN 
LAND  OF  THE  BRONX— RURAL  SCENES  IN  A  CITY'S  BOUNDARIES 

SWEET  are  the  uses  of — advertising.  So  the  poet 
did  not  sing;  but  this  is  the  theme  of  the  brush  as 
the  peripatetic  artist  wields  it  on  rock  and  cliff,  whose 
bare,  bold  beauty  even  the  mosses  and  lichens  have 
spared.  It  is  bad  enough  to  become  interested  in  a 
newspaper  paragraph  only  to  find  it  a  snare  to  lead 
the  unwary  on  in  the  direction  of  a  plaster  or  pill,  but 
to  settle  one's  self  back  in  a  luxurious  palace-car  chair 
and  prepare  for  the  enjoyment  of  a  delicious  bit  of 
rocky  scenery,  and  then  to  find  the  foreground  ruined 
by  sprawling  displays  of  the  advertiser's  art  scattered 
over  every  available  surface  of  smooth  stone,  implies 
one  of  the  impertinences  of  humanity  which  are  not 
to  be  forgiven  in  this  world  or  in  the  next.  An  old 
preceptor  of  mine  used  to  say,  "  The  boy  who  would 
injure  a  shade  tree  would  kill  a  man,"  and  I  am  in- 
clined to  supplement  this  axiom  by  adding  that  the 
man  who  would  wantonly  deface  a  pretty  touch  of 
nature's  handiwork  was  originally  framed  for  a  pirate. 
The  paint-pot  of  this  pernicious  buccaneer  is  an  un- 
mitigated evil. 

The  fact  that  the  advertising  artist  had  exercised 
his  diabolical  ingenuity  upon  Pudding  Rock  has  rec- 


310  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

onciled  to  its  departure  the  people  of  Morrisania,  in 
whose  eyes  it  was  an  historic  landmark.  Two  months 
ago  it  stood  where  the  glacier  had  deposited  it,  a 
stranger  from  a  distant  shore  "  centuries  ago."  Now 
it  has  been  shattered  into  a  thousand  fragments,  and 
it  will  return  again  to  earth,  to  pass  an  existence  of 
humble  usefulness  as  the  foundation  of  quiet  homes. 
In  the  days  of  its  glory  it  stood  out  in  shape  not  un- 
like a  pudding  in  a  bag,  and  as  if  gathered  in  at  the 
top,  where  a  cluster  of  half  a  dozen  cedars  rose  from 
its  centre.  Rising  twenty-five  feet  from  the  ground 
and  extending  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  it  was  always 
a  conspicuous  object  from  the  old  Boston  Post- road. 
Its  site  was  between  what  will  be  One  Hundred  and 
Sixty-fifth  and  One  Hundred  and  Sixty-sixth  streets, 
at  the  end  of  Cauldwell  Avenue  and  directly  south  of 
the  handsome  and  hospitable  residence  of  Mr.  Will- 
iam Cauldwell,  whose  father,  in  1848,  built  the  first 
house  erected  in  the  new  village  of  Morrisania.  Pud- 
ding Rock  had  its  history  and  traditions.  In  the  rear 
was  a  natural  fireplace,  whose  use  the  Indians  had 
long  ago  discovered.  Here  they  came  to  have  their 
corn-feasts,  and  presumably  to  discuss  Saddle  Rock 
oysters  and  Little  Neck  clams,  with  other  seasonable 
delicacies.  For  it  must  always  be  said  in  favor  of  the 
Indian  women  that  they  were  good  house-keepers  and 
cooks,  and  the  men  had  excellent  appetites.  When 
the  Huguenot  colonists,  driven  by  religious  persecu- 
tion from  beautiful  France,  took  up  their  line  of  march 
along  the  East  River  and  by  the  shores  of  Long  Isl- 
and Sound  in  search  of  a  warm  spot  where  vines  would 
grow,  and  a  quiet  place  where  they  might  sing  the 
Lord's  songs  in  a  strange  land,  they  camped  around 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  31 1 

Pudding  Rock  and  made  their  headquarters  here  for 
some  months  before  they  finally  decided  to  build  their 
New  Rochelle.  To  them  it  was  literally  the  shadow 
of  a  gre^t  rock  in  a  weary  land.  Afterwards  it  became 
to  the  settler  and  voyager  a  landmark  by  which  dis- 
tances were  measured,  and  to  travellers  in  the  stage- 
coaches on  the  old  Boston  Road  it  was  pointed  out  as 
a  natural  curiosity.  Last  of  all  came  the  geologist, 
with  his  little  hammer  and  his  big  brain,  and,  after 
tapping  in  succession  the  stone  and  his  own  head,  he 
announced  that  the  rock  was  a  pilgrim  and  a  stranger, 
left  stranded  on  a  foreign  shore  by  a  huge  glacier  that 
had  swept  down  from  the  Polar  regions  and  then  crept 
slowly  backward  to  Greenland,  leaving  the  valley  of 
the  Hudson  open  to  the  tread  of  the  mastodon,  and 
slowly  raising  the  price  of  ice  as  it  retired. 

There  are  traces  of  a  great  glacial  deposit  extending 
from  the  line  of  the  Harlem  River  up  thrdugh  Con- 
necticut and  beyond ;  and  Pudding  Rock,  whose  for- 
mation was  foreign  to  the  rocky  growth  of  its  vicinity, 
was  not  .the  least  curious  of  them.  Some  of  these 
deposits  took  the  shape  of  "  rocking  -stones,"  and 
these  were  a  source  of  superstitious  veneration  to  the 
simple  red  men  of  other  days,  who  were  wont  at 
intervals  to  gather  about  them  and  go  through  the 
mysteries  of  a  medicine-dance.  One  of  the  most  re- 
markable of  the  chain  of  rocking-stones  is  found  on 
the  old  Lydig  place,  near  West  Farms.  It  is  an  im- 
mense bowlder,  so  nicely  balanced  on  a  rocky  drift 
that  the  pressure  of  a  strong  finger  will  readily  move 
it,  and  yet  so  firmly  set  that  steam-power  would  be 
needed  to  drag  it  from  its  moorings.  I  remember 
that  when  I  saw  it  first,  years  ago,  the  farmer  in  charge 


312  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

of  the  place  told  me  that  once  he  had  harnessed  up 
a  dozen  yoke  of  oxen  to  see  if  he  could  draw  it  away 
from  its  position,  but  he  found  that  they  could  not 
move  it,  and  yet  I  put  forth  two  ringers  and  easily 
set  it  rocking.  The  structure  of  the  huge  stone  was 
entirely  different  from  the  trap  rock  on  which  it 
rested,  and  it  was  a  stranger  amid  the  geological  for- 
mation of  Westchester  County.  It  had  found  a  pleas- 
ant abiding-place  on  the  historic  old  grounds  through 
which  the  Bronx  found  its  way  under  overhanging 
trees,  making  a  scene  of  rural  loveliness  which  it 
would  be  difficult  to  surpass.  The  Lydig  place  was 
once  the  country  residence  of  the  De  Lanceys.  The 
quaint  and  picturesque  old  homestead,  built  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century,  was  destroyed  by  fire 
shortly  before  the  outbreaking  of  the  late  war;  but 
the  flames  could  not  sweep  away  the  ancient  garden 
laid  out  in  the  fashion  of  half  a  century  ago,  the 
summer-houses  and  rustic  seats,  and  the  gracious 
beauty  of  the  stately  trees.  Even  when  the  brick 
and  stone  phalanxes  of  city  blocks  begin  to  crowd 
into  the  quiet  hamlet  of  West  Farms,  they  will  not, 
as  I  hope  and  believe,  be  able  to  destroy  the  incom- 
parable beauty  of  the  Bronx  River  scenery,  of  which 
the  denizen  of  New  York  knows  all  too  little. 

As  the  city  sweeps  up  to  the  north  and  east,  it  is 
blotting  out  the  boundary  lines  of  the  score  of  scat- 
tered hamlets  and  country  cross-roads  which  once 
dotted  that  part  of  Westchester  County.  North  New 
York,  Wilton,  and  Eltona  have  virtually  disappeared, 
Mott  Haven  has  melted  into  Melrose,  and  the  names 
of  streets  from  the  city  south  of  the  Harlem  have 
crossed  that  stream  and  usurped  the  homely  titles  of 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  313 

the  old  country  roads  of  thirty  and  forty  years  ago. 
The  story  of  Morrisania  is  the  history  of  that  active 
section  of  the  city,  once  a  portion  of  the  "  neutral  ter- 
ritory," but  now  bristling  with  business  at  every  street 
corner.  It  was  in  1848  that  the  village  of  Morrisania 
was  laid  out.  The  plot  was  destined  to  be  a  suburban 
Eden.  Every  man  was  to  have  his  acre  of  ground, 
and  only  eligible  citizens  were  to  be  permitted  to 
plant  their  domestic  standards  here.  The  village  was 
to  be  strictly  a  temperance  settlement,  and  neither 
ale  nor  strong  drink  was  to  be  sold  within  its  limits. 
Alas  for  the  mutability  of  human  devices !  To-day  it 
looks  as  if  nothing  but  fluids  were  sold  in  Morrisania, 
and  great  breweries,  which  cease  not  to  puff  and  labor 
night  and  day,  dot  its  hill-sides,  and  move  its  reminis- 
cent old  settlers  to  wrath.  Standing  in  their  shadow, 
it  is  difficult  to  realize  that  forty  years  ago  only  fields 
of  wheat  and  corn  and  stretches  of  forest  trees  were 
in  sight,  and  that  the  only  other  signs  of  civilization 
within  the  horizon  were  a  little  old  school-house  and 
a  winding  stage  road.  Yet  in  1848  Mr.  Andrew  Cauld- 
well  built  the  first  house  in  the  village  plot,  and  in  the 
next  year  the  colonists  opened  and  dedicated  a  little 
union  church,  in  which  the  inhabitants  of  this  charm- 
ing new  paradise  were  to  worship  forever  in  harmony ; 
and  when  the  anniversary  day  of  the  settlement  came 
around  a  brass  band  and  an  oration  made  a  prodigious 
celebration  of  the  event,  which  was  rounded  up  by  a 
dance  at  Horace  Ward's  old  tavern  at  the  base  of  Buena 
Ridge.  The  men  and  women  who  danced  at  the  an- 
cient hostlery  that  night  are  by  no  means  old  to-day, 
but  it  makes  them  feel  like  relics  of  the  past  when  they 
stand  in  the  streets  of  Morrisania  and  look  about  them. 


3  H  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW   YORK 

Only  one  landmark  of  the  past  remains,  now  that 
Pudding  Rock  is  gone.  A  little  to  the  east  of  the  old 
Boston  Post -road,  and  just  north  of  One  Hundred 
and  Fifty -sixth  Street,  stands  a  decrepit  wooden 
building  a  story  and  a  half  in  height,  with  a  long, 
steep  roof,  and  a  porch  that  runs  the  entire  length  of 
its  front.  The  mosses  of  a  century  seem  to  have  gath- 
ered on  the  long  slope  of  the  roof,  and  it  appears  in 
every  part  to  be  slowly  withering  to '  decay,  like  a 
dried  leaf  on  a  November  oak.  Near  by,  at  one  time, 
Mill  Creek  prattled  along  towards  the  East  River, 
over  a  pebbly  bed  and  under  a  double  line  of  willows, 
but  a  sewer  has  swallowed  up  the  pretty  brook,  and 
the  new  grade  of  adjacent  streets  threatens  the  exist- 
ence of  the  school-house.  It  was  beneath  this  roof 
that  the  gentry  of  the  neighborhood,  including  the 
various  branches  of  the  Morris  family,  whose  ancient 
homesteads  still  linger  in  its  neighborhood,  received 
their  early  education.  Most  of  the  little  ones,  who, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  century,  crept  and  danced 
along  by  country  paths  to  the  presence  of  the  peda- 
gogue who  flourished  a  good  birchen  rod  here,  have 
grown  old  and  tottered  back  to  Mother  Earth's  em- 
brace, but  the  frail  little  clap-boarded  temple  of  learn- 
ing has  survived  them,  and  still  shelters  life  and  love 
under  its  mosses.  It  was  a  desolate  sort  of  blot  on  a 
new  and  dressy  city  landscape  when  I  last  saw  it  in 
the  chill  light  of  a  November  sun  on  a  Sunday  after- 
noon, but  its  desolation  was  far  more  eloquent  than 
the  sermon  of  a  famous  preacher  which  I  heard  that 
day. 

Did  I  not  say  something  about  the  beauty  of  that 
portion  of  Westchester  which  was  annexed  to  this 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  315 

city  a  few  years  ago  ?  I  have  frequently  advised  trav- 
ellers who  were  wearied  alike  of  Mont  Blanc  and  the 
Yosemite  Valley  to  betake  themselves  to  a  carriage 
and  explore  the  City  of  New  York,  not  hastily  and  su- 
perficially, but  with  slow  delight,  and  with  the  pains-  t 
taking  care  that  marks  the  botanist.  In  the  ancient 
era  of  Peter  the  Headstrong,  it  was  the  talk  and  prep- 
aration of  an  entire  winter  to  take  a  trip  from  the 
Bowling  Green  to  the  distant  plantations  of  Harlem 
Village,  or  to  voyage  by  schooner  to  Communipaw  or 
through  the  horrible  whirlpools  of  Hell  Gate.  Per- 
haps it  might  require  as  much  determination  to  start 
on  an  expedition  to  the  way-side  settlement  known  as 
"  Moshulu,"  which  snuggles  down  in  a  convenient  val- 
ley half  a  mile  from  Fordham  ;  to  the  sleepy  old  farm- 
ing hamlet  of  Bronx,  over  whose  cluster  of  rustic  hab- 
itations an  ancient  windmill,  long  disused  and  ghostly 
in  appearance,  still  broods ;  or  the  little  village  on  a 
knoll  which  is  now  known  as  Belmont,  but  once  drew 
its  forgotten  designation  from  the  homestead  of  Colo- 
nel Tompkins,  the  commander  of  the  famous  Tomp- 
kins  Blues  of  lang  syne.  There  is  scarcely  a  thing 
about  these  places  to  indicate  that  they  are  a  part  of 
a  great  city,  and,  indeed,  I  am  told  that  there  are  old 
people  living  in  sight  of  the  Bronx  River,  and  within 
the  corporate  limits  of  the  metropolis,  who  have  never 
seen  the  City  Hall.  The  horse-cars  have  found  their 
way  to  "  the  village  "  of  West  Farms,  as  its  older  in- 
habitants love  to  call  it,  but  the  railway  is  still  the 
only  modern  touch  to  the  antiquated  surroundings. 
The  houses  are  old-fashioned,  and  have  a  look  as  if 
they  would  prove  obstinately  impenetrable  to  change. 
One  of  the  most  venerable  of  the  buildings  which  ap- 


316  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

parently  date  back  to  the  last  century  is  a  two-storied 
frame  structure,  with  gambrel  roof  and  a  long  porch 
in  front,  which  is  said  to  have  been  a  headquarters  for 
Washington  and  his  staff  in  the  early  part  of  the  Rev- 
olutionary War.  Whether  this  were  true  or  not,  this 
sleepy  old  village  was  the  scene  of  one  of  the  most 
daring  exploits  of  Aaron  Burr,  who,  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning  of  a  sharp  winter  day,  attacked  a  block- 
house erected,  on  the  present  site  of  the  principal  ho- 
tel, by  Gen.  Oliver  de  Lancey,  and  by  the  free  use  of 
hand-grenades  and  scaling-ladders  persuaded  the  as- 
tonished garrison  to  surrender  without  firing  a  shot. 
At  the  old  De  Lancey  mansion,  too,  the  British  offi- 
cers were  freely  entertained,  and  this  hospitality  to  a 
foreign  foe  was  avenged  by  the  burning  of  the  coun- 
try-seat of  the  De  Lanceys  in  Bloomingdale  during 
the  prevalence  of  hostilities.  These  events  belong  to 
the  long  ago  in  the  history  of  this  land,  but,  standing 
in  the  rustic  streets  of  West  Farms,  in  sight  of  gables 
and  shingles  and  mosses,  one  naturally  reverts  to  the 
days  when  the  hand  of  every  man  was  against  his 
neighbor  in  Westchester  County.  But  athwart  this 
blood-red  landscape  of  the  "  neutral  ground  "  there  is 
also  a  glint  of  love  and  wooing,  as  when  impetuous 
Aaron  Burr  was  wafted  by  muffled  oars  across  the 
Hudson  in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  and  dashed 
across  country  and  through  the  pickets  of  the  enemy 
to  the  home  of  the  dainty  widow  whose  heart  his 
daring  won.  Even  into  these  somnolent  haunts,  whose 
natural  beauties  have  inspired  in  olden  time  the  pens 
of  Halleck  and  Drake,  the  brush  of  the  advertising 
artist  has  penetrated  and  left  a  trail  of  disfigurement. 
Many  historic  landmarks  and  legends  will  belong 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


317 


to  the  nearly  four  thousand  acres  which  constitute  the 
new  parks  of  the  metropolis.     Beyond,  but  in  sight 
of,  Kingsbridge  stands  a  commanding  eminence  known 
as  Vault  Hill,  where   was   the   ancient   burial-ground 
of  the  Van   Cort 
landts,  and  here,  in 
1776,    Augustus 
Van     Cortlandt, 
who  held  the  office 
of   Clerk   of   New 
York,  concealed 
the  public  records 
of  the  city.     Five 

years  later  Wash-  VAN  CORTLANDT  MANOR-HOUSE 

ington  lighted  ex- 
tensive camp-fires  on  this  hill  and  its  slopes,  and  suc- 
cessfully deceived  the  British  enemy  encamped  on  the 
southern  side  of  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek,  while  the 
great  body  of  his  army  was  on  the  march  to  join  La- 
fayette at  Yorktown. 

At  the  southern  extremity  of  the  lake  which  bears 
the  family  name  of  the  Van  Cortlandts,  an  ancient 
mill,  which  has  ground  corn  for  both  the  friends  and 
foes  of  American  independence,  nestles  among  over- 
hanging chestnuts  and  elms,  and  looks  out  upon  a 
miniature  cascade  and  rapids,  which  babble  to  the 
great  trees  on  the  banks  the  same  song  they  sang 
more  than  a  century  ago.  To  the  north-east  is  an 
opening  in  the  woods,  where  the  dust  of  eighteen  of 
the  forty  Stockbridge  Indians  who  fell  beneath  British 
bullets  while  fighting  on  the  side  of  the  Colonists  lie 
in  one  grave,  still  unmarked  by  a  stone.  All  through 
this  region  the  ploughshare  and  the  spade  of  the 


3l8  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK 

builder  turn  up  cannon-balls,  rusty  fragments  of  bay- 
onets, and  other  reminders  of  the  deadly  struggle 
which  raged  here  for  eight  long  years.  From  Kings- 
bridge  to  White  Plains  and  from  the  Hudson  to  the 
Sound  was  one  great  battle-field,  and  the  most  illus- 
trious leaders  of  both  armies  have  ridden  along  these 
country  roads  in  the  times  that  tried  the  faith  of  our 
fathers. 

The  scenery  on  the  banks  of  the  Bronx  River,  which 
is  the  main  feature  of  the  new  Bronx  Park,  has  long 
been  the  admiration  of  our  painters  and  poets,  and  the 
only  circumstance  which  has  closed  the  eyes  of  New 
Yorkers  to  its  wealth  of  natural  beauty  is  the  fact  that 
its  loveliness  lay  right  at  their  doors.  These  rocky 
ravines,  wooded  slopes,  glades  tangled  with  wild  vines, 
and  placid  pools,  should  have  been  hidden  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains  or  in  the  Adirondack  region,  in  order 
to  have  been  appreciated  by  those  who  think  that  a 
long  journey  is  necessary  in  order  to  discover  the  beau- 
tiful in  nature.  There  hangs  upon  the  walls  of  my 
library  a  painting  which  always  exacts  an  inquiry  as 
to  the  spot  it  has  reproduced,  and  rarely  does  the  in- 
quirer fail  to  express  his  surprise  that  such  a  scene  of 
picturesque  loveliness  actually  exists  within  the  cor- 
porate bounds  of  New  York. 

There  is  less  of  historic  interest  attached  to  this  im- 
mediate locality  than  to  other  portions  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. The  reason  for  this  is  akin  to  the  tragedy 
of  the  "  Three  Wise  Men  of  Gotham,"  who  went  to 
sea  in  a  bowl,  of  whom  legends  make  this  record : 

"  If  the  bowl  had  been  stronger 
My  story  had  been  longer." 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


319 


The  quiet  waters  of  the  Bronx  would  have  been  the 
scene  of  a  sanguinary  naval  battle  had  they  been  a 
little  deeper.  For,  during  the  British  occupancy  of 
New  York,  Sir  William  Howe  ordered  the  commander 
of  the  British  fleet  to  sail  up  the  Bronx  with  his  fleet 
and  guns,  and  annihilate  certain  Yankee  gunboats  of 
light  draught  that  were  making  things  unpleasantly 
warm  for  the  Tory  inhabitants  thereabouts.  After  a 


DISTANT  VIEW   OF  THE  PALISADES   FROM  VAN   CORTLANDT   PARK 


brief,  inglorious  cruise  to  the  mouth  of  the  little  river, 
the  disgusted  British  admiral  was  compelled  by  the 
shallowness  of  the  water  to  retire  as  he  came,  without 
having  harvested  his  expected  laurels.  But  there  still 
stands,  solitary  and  alone,  towering  to  the  height  of  150 
feet,  a  magnificent  evergreen  known  as  the  De  Lancey 
Pine,  to  recall  the  time  when  stout  old  Oliver  De  Lan- 
cey led  his  regiment  of  loyalists  out  to  battle  for  the 


320  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 

rights  of  king  and  crown.  Peace  to  the  ashes  of 
those  brave  men !  The  same  fidelity  to  existing  au- 
thority which  made  them  defenders  of  the  rights  of 
royalty  impelled  their  descendants  nearly  a  century 
later  to  take  up  arms  in  support  of  the  Union  as  it 
was. 

A  novelty  in  the  way  of  a  free  sea-side  resort  for  the 
weary  multitudes  of  a  great  city  is  Pelham  Bay,  with 
a  coast-line  nine  miles  in  extent,  green  uplands,  pictu- 
resque inlets,  rolling  meadows,  and  ever-changing  pan- 
orama of  marine  life  on  the  Sound.  Out  in  front  lies 
City  Island,  on  which  the  first  proprietor  hoped  to 
build  a  great  commercial  city.  The  original  lord  of 
the  manor,  Thomas  Pell,  purchased  10,000  acres  here- 
abouts in  1654  for  a  few  trinkets  from  the  Siwanoy 
Indians,  who  were  a  branch  of  the  Mohicans.  The 
red  men  wrere  blotted  out  a  century  ago,  and  the  bur- 
ial mounds  of  the  last  of  their  sachems,  Nimhan  and 
Annhook,  are  still  to  be  found  on  the  Rapelyea  estate, 
close  to  the  water.  They  gave  their  name  to  the 
great  rock  Miskow,  on  Hunter's  Island  (a  spot  of  rare 
attractiveness  within  the  Park  boundaries),  and,  re- 
garding it  with  special  veneration  as  a  gift  of  Manito 
to  his  children,  held  annual  feasts  under  its  shadow. 
Pelham  Neck,  in  another  part  of  the  Park,  was  the 
scene  of  a  spirited  battle  between  4000  British  troops 
under  Lord  Howe  and  800  of  the  American  militia 
under  Colonel  Glover.  The  latter  laid  an  ambuscade 
for  the  redcoats,  and,  with  a  loss  of  only  twelve  men, 
killed  or  wounded  1000  of  the  enemy.  A  generation 
later,  in  1814,  two  British  men-of-war  bombarded  the 
Neck,  and  the  Americans  returned  the  compliment 
from  their  batteries.  It  was  the  last  time  that  the 


A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK  32! 

thunder  of  British  guns  was  heard  within  the  precincts 
of  New  York. 

Most  interesting  to  me  of  all  the  romance  that  lin- 
gers about  the  spot,  whose  very  atmosphere  is  tradi- 
tional, is  the  story  of  Anne  Hutchinson's  adventurous 
life  and  tragic  death.  Puritan  intolerance  had  driven 
her  from  New  England,  and  the  heroic  woman  made 
her  home  in  the  wilderness  that  then  fronted  on  Pel- 
ham  Bay.  But  she  was  not  to  end  her  troubled  days 
in  peace.  An  Indian  outbreak  came,  and  she  fell  a 
victim  to  the  tomahawk  of  the  savages  whom  she  had 
always  befriended,  finding  toleration  only  in  the  grave. 
The  brave,  stately  woman  left  the  baptism  of  her 
name  to  Hutchinson  River,  which  forms  the  western 
boundary  of  the  Park,  and  its  Indian  designation,  Ac- 
queanoncke,  has  been  obliterated  from  modern  rec- 
ords. When  Boston  heard  of  her  death,  it  gave  de- 
vout thanks  in  the  churches,  because,  in  its  judgment, 
God  had  made  "  a  heavy  example  "  of  "  a  woful  wom- 
an," but  we  can  afford  to  keep  her  memory  green. 
The  life  of  brave  Mistress  Anne  Hutchinson  was  pure 
if  not  gentle,  and  she  was  a  pioneer  of  that  sweet  gos- 
pel of  tolerance  which  has  ever  been  a  marked  feature 
of  the  city  of  the  Knickerbockers. 


322  A   TOUR  AROUND   NEW    YORK 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

MANHATTAN    ISLAND  —  SOME  ANCIENT    HOMESTEADS — WORK    OF    THE 

WOODMAN'S  AXE  —  A  MYSTERY  OF  DRESS  AND  ARCHITECTURE — 
BLOCK-HOUSES  AND  EARTHWORKS — A  SACRED  GROVE 

IN  a  foot-note  to  The  Spy,  Fenimore  Cooper  writes  : 
"  Every  Manhattanese  knows  the  difference  between 
4  Manhattan  Island'  and  'the  Island  of  Manhattan.' 
The  first  is  applied  to  a  small  district  in  the  vicinity 
of  Corlaer's  Hook,  while  the  last  embraces  the  whole 
island ;  or  the  city  and  county  of  New  York,  as  it  is 
termed  in  the  laws.''  The  Manhattanese  of  sixty 
years  ago  were  well  acquainted  with  the  distinction 
between  the  titles,  but  to  most  New  Yorkers  of  to- 
day the  words  convey  no  shade  of  difference.  Indeed, 
I  had  wrongly  written  "  Manhattan  Island  "  on  a  re- 
cent occasion,  when  the  keen  eye  of  my  editorial  critic 
detected  the  lapse  of  memory,  and  I  was  admonished 
of  the  outbreak  of  wrath  that  might  be  expected  from 
the  shade  of  the  painstaking  master  of  fiction  who  in 
life  liked  no  name  so  well  as  that  which  his  personal 
friends  frequently  bestowed  upon  him,  "  The  Path- 
finder." 

"  Manhattan  Island  "  was  the  name  given  to  a  high 
knoll  of  ground  on  the  East  River,  above  the  foot  of 
Rivington  Street,  containing  about  an  acre  of  land, 
surrounded  by  creeks  and  salt-marsh,  and  at  high  tide 
partly  covered  with  sea-water.  Lewis  Street  ran  about 


PETERSFIELD,  THE   RESIDENCE   OF   PETRUS   STUYVESANT 

through  the  centre  of  it.  Here  were  located  the  ship- 
yards of  Henry  Eckford  and  other  great  marine  archi- 
tects of  his  day — when  American  enterprise,  American 
mechanics,  and  American  patriotism  were  bent  on  dis- 
placing the  colors  of  other  countries  in  the  world's 
commercial  arena  with  the  American  flag.  Just  north 
of  Manhattan  Island  a  natural  creek  ran  up  through 
the  centre  of  the  present  Tompkins  Square  to  the 
vicinity  of  First  Avenue.  The  mouth  of  the  creek 
lay  between  Manhattan  Island  and  Burnt  Mill  Point, 
or  "  Branda  Munah  Point,"  as  the  septuagenarians  of 
to-day  used  to  call  it  when  they  were  boys.  One  of 
these  late  leaves  of  Time's  autumn  tells  me  that  the 
Point  used  to  be  a  great  swimming  and  fishing  place, 
and  in  the  hot  summer  days  a  perpetual  temptation 
to  play  truant.  As  he  first  remembers  the  island, 
several  creeks  were  crossed  on  small  wooden  bridges 


324  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

to  reach  it,  and  the  bridges  were  attainable  only  after 
a  decidedly  moist  tramp  through  soggy  meadows  and 
salt-marshes. 

The  story  of  the  old  houses  on  the  Island  of  Man- 
hattan (few  now,  and  growing  farther  between  with 
each  passing  decade)  can  only  be  written  by  piece- 
meal. Families  have  disappeared,  and  their  house- 
hold traditions  with  them.  Their  lands  have  passed 
into  the  hands  of  strangers  and  speculators.  Only 
dim  legends  or  dusty  legal  conveyances  remain  to 
connect  them  with  the  past.  In  one  case  I  have 
found  it  impossible  to  tell  with  certainty  which  of 
two  adjacent  homesteads  that  were  of  eminent  repute 
one  hundred  years  ago  rightly  represents  the  family 
which  was  known  to  have  made  it  a  centre  of  brilliant 
hospitality. 

The  world  of  to-day  seems  to  have  forgotten  en- 
tirely a  baronial  mansion  and  estate  that  was  once  a 
feature  in  the  rugged  landscape  above  Harlem  Plains 
and  along  the  wooded  heights  that  overlooked  the 
river.  About  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago  Archi- 
bald Watts  erected  at  the  eastern  foot  of  Laurel  Hill, 
on  what  is  now  the  line  of  One  Hundred  and  Forty- 
second  Street,  between  Sixth  and  Seventh  avenues,  a 
massive  stone  mansion  surmounted  by  a  cupola.  It 
was  almost  hidden  by  hill  and  woods  from  the  Bloom- 
ingdale  and  Kingsbridge  roads,  and  wholly  shut  out 
from  the  sight  of  travellers  on  Harlem  Lane.  The 
only  exit  was  to  Eighth  Avenue,  then  a  country  road. 
Mr.  Watts  laid  out  an  avenue  fifty  feet  wide  diagonal- 
ly from  the  vicinity  of  One  Hundred  and  Thirty-fifth 
Street  to  One  Hundred  and  Thirty- ninth  Street  at 
Seventh  Avenue,  and  at  its  sides  set  out  a  double  row 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  325 

of  trees  which  have  had  a  stately  and  inviting  appear- 
ance for  the  last  forty  years,  for  their  foliage  was  so 
thick  that  the  noonday  sun  could  not  penetrate  it.  It 
was  a  veritable  grove  of  Arcadia,  bespeaking  in  the 
dog-days  the  slumber  of  Sybaris  under  its  shade.  For 
many  years  this  sylvan  retreat  has  been  the  resort  of 
those  who  loved  a  tranquil  walk. 

At  either  end  of  the  road  stood,  until  a  year  or  two 
ago,  two  iron  gates  of  English  ducal  pattern,  such  as 
I  have  never  seen  elsewhere  on  the  Island  of  Man- 
hattan, that  lent  to  the  surroundings  the  air  of  an 
old-country  park,  and  brought  to  mind  past  pilgrim- 
ages across  the  sea.*  The  old  stone  mansion  is  still 
standing,  a  swell  as  a  spacious  frame-house,  erected 
by  Mr.  Watts  for  his  son  about  half  a  century  ago, 
and  which,  as  it  stands  on  higher  ground,  has  always 
been  observable  from  the  west.  But  the  old  houses 
have  begun  to  put  on  something  of  a  skeleton  air. 
Their  luxuriant  crowns  of  foliage  have  been  shorn  and 
thinned  by  the  steel  of  the  woodsman,  and  they  seem 
to  be  rapidly  growing  to  the  age  of  those  who  have 
outlived  their  strength,  and  are  waiting  for  the  crum- 
bling touch  of  the  destroyer.  Within  the  last  few  days 
the  axe  has  levelled  nearly  all  those  ancient  sons  of 

*  This  leafy  lane,  a  pleasant  sight  from  the  cars  of  the  Manhattan 
Railway,  remained  almost  unspoiled  until  1890,  since  which  time  it  has 
been  obliterated,  chiefly  by  the  great  blocks  of  houses  with  cross-alleys 
extending  from  Seventh  to  Eighth  avenue.  Into  the  foundations  of 
these  houses  have  been  built  the  stones  of  the  walls  bounding  the  old 
Watts  Lane.  In  1891,  One  Hundred  and  Forty-first,  One  Hundred 
and  Forty  -  second,  and  One  Hundred  and  Forty -third  streets  were 
"filled  in,"  ten  feet  deep,  across  the  meadows  of  the  Watts  farm,  the 
former  shearing  away  the  porch  of  the  "massive  stone  mansion,"  and 
the  whole  invasion  destroying  almost  entirely  the  retirement  and  privacy 
of  the  place. — L. 


326  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

the  forest  that  kept  guard  around  the  old  homestead, 
and  the  glare  of  the  September  sun  now  lights  up  a 
scene  of  dusty  desolation  where  they  for  so  long  time 
had  stood  in  their  glory.  I  am  not  going  to  preach 
the  funeral  sermon  over  these  fallen  giants.  It  is 
better  to  tighten  up  my  shoestrings,  grasp  my  cane 
a  little  more  firmly,  pucker  my  lips  into  the  ghost  of 
a  whistle,  and  trudge  over  the  old  Macomb's  Dam 
bridge  or  the  more  ancient  Kingsbridge  planks,  to 
seek  shade  and  retirement  in  the  woods  that  overlook 
Mosholu  Creek,  or  line  the  historic  banks  of  the  Bronx. 
Our  Dutch  ancestors  patterned  their  houses  largely 
after  the  fashion  of  their  clothes,  in  a  day  when  out- 
ward attire  was  as  distinct  an  indication  that  they  wor- 
shipped according  to  the  rites  of  the  Reformed  Church 
of  Holland  as  the  Quaker's  stiff  garments  bespoke  the 
disciple  of  George  Fox,  and  the  severe  and  sombre 
dress  of  the  New  England  Puritan  marked  the  disciple 
of  Cotton  Mather.  The  home  of  Dirck  Van  Amster- 
dam looked  like  himself — short  of  stature,  ample  of 
girth,  broad  and  deep  of  pocket,  and  unpretentious  in 
his  homely  attire,  and  as  he  sat  out  on  his  stoop 
in  the  summer  evening,  drawing  a  cloud  of  comfort 
from  his  long  pipe,  his  leathern  breeches,  huge  brown 
waistcoat,  and  capacious  shoes  corresponded  accu- 
rately with  his  comfortable  home.  With  the  Eng- 
lish conquest  there  came  an  invasion  of  more  cere- 
monious dress  and  statelier  dwellings.  Powdered  wigs 
and  cocked  hats,  velvet  coats  and  breeches,  silk  stock- 
ings and  massive  canes  marked  the  gentleman  of  the 
period,  and  he  dwelt  in  a  massive  residence  of  brick 
or  stone,  such  as  within  the  memory  of  those  still 
living  were  the  city  homes  of  the  Waltons,  De  Pey- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


327 


sters,  and  other  colonial  families.  In  my  youth  the 
fashion  of  homes  was  one  of  quiet,  unpretending  dig- 
nity, without  display — such  homes  as  one  still  finds 
on  the  north  side  of  Washington  Square  and  facing 
it,  which  for  elegance  of  comfort  cannot  be  surpassed ; 
or,  at  least,  I  think  so.  Recalling  the  civic  dress 
of  the  period,  I  can  see  that  the  fashioning  of  house 
and  attire  was  on  the  same  plan  of  easy,  dignified  en- 
joyment. It  was  a  decorous  entity  in  red  brick,  with 
a  mere  shirt -frill  of  white  marble  stoop.  As  to  the 
present  day  it  is  difficult  to  philosophize.  As  I  am 
whirled  up -town  on  an  elevated  road  past  the  old 
houses  on  the  Bloomingdale  Road  in  which  I  "  went 
to  the  country  "  for  weeks  at  a  time  in  my  boyhood, 


CLAREMONT 


I  behold  a  collection  of  symptoms  that  I  find  it  im- 
possible to  diagnose. 

There  was  certainly  a  dignity  about  the  masculine 
dress   of   half   a  century   or  more   ago   which   seems 


328  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW    YORK 

to  have  been  lost  or  forgotten.  At  that  time  a  man's 
occupation  could  be  told  by  "  the  cut  of  his  jib,"  and 
professional  characteristics  were  very  noticeable.  The 
clergyman  wore  a  dress-coat  of  black,  and  folded  a  vol- 
uminous white  handkerchief  many  times  around  his 
neck.  In  society  one  could  not  distinguish  any  eccle- 
siastical difference  of  dress  between  Dr.  Berrian,  the  rec- 
tor of  Trinity  Church,  and  Dr.  Gardiner  Spring,  pastor 
of  the  Brick  Church  at  Beekman  Street  and  the  Park,  or 
between  churchly  Dr.  Wainwright  and  his  Calvinist  an- 
tagonist who  tilted  at  him  with  a  sharp  pen,  Dr.  Potts. 
The  successful  lawyer  was  wont  to  dress  after  the  style 
of  Daniel  Webster,  in  blue  coat  with  brass  buttons, 
nankeen  waistcoat  and  trousers,  and  ample  shirt-frill. 
It  was  the  portentous  air  of  the  physician  that  mainly 
distinguished  him,  for  his  clothes  were  plain,  invariably 
black,  and  the  older  members  of  the  fraternity  clung 
to  the  gold-headed  cane  as  if  there  were  something  of 
magic  in  it.  The  sober  dress  of  the  banker,  the  mer- 
chant, and  the  man  of  money  was  always  the  perfec- 
tion of  quiet  taste,  whether  it  were  brown,  blue,  or 
black,  and  there  was  a  quiet  dignity  about  these  men 
of  business,  whether  in  the  counting-room  or  at  home, 
that  always  challenged  my  admiration.  One  fashion 
all  men  had  in  common.  None  wore  a  mustache 
only.  Shaven  faces  were  the  rule  and  a  beard  the  ex- 
ception ;  but  the  mustache  was  held  to  be  the  mark 
of  the  gambler  or  adventurer  from  abroad.  I  think  it 
was  in  1853  that  Bishop  Chase  of  New  Hampshire 
came  to  New  York  to  ordain  the  graduating  class  of 
the  General  Theological  Seminary,  and  he  positively 
refused  to  lay  his  consecrated  hands  upon  one  of  its 
members,  the  Rev.  John  Frederick  Schroeder,  Jr.,  until 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  329 

he  had  shaved  his  upper  lip.  The  young  man  pro- 
tested that  a  razor  had  never  touched  his  face,  and 
that  he  had  thus  intended  to  keep  the  unspoken  vow 
of  a  Nazarene.  His  protest  was  in  vain  ;  the  mus- 
tache had  to  go.  So  in  later  years,  when  the  mustache 
was  tolerated  here,  a  young  business  man  from  this 
city  who  went  to  Milwaukee  to  be  cashier  in  a  bank 
was  compelled  to  resort  to  the  razor  to  satisfy  preju- 
dice. It  was  a  day  when  no  gentleman  wore  other 
than  a  "  beaver  "  hat ;  when  soft  and  round  hats  were 
alike  unknown,  and  the  cap  was  the  next  and  final 
step  in  the  descent ;  when  fob  ribbons  and  seals,  and 
perhaps  a  solitary  seal  ring,  were  the  rule  for  jewelry, 
when  striped  stockings  were  unknown,  because  the 
boot  covered  the  socks  that  the  hands  of  wife  or 
mother  had  knitted. 

Thinking  of  this  similitude  between  the  man  and 
his  home,  I  find  fresh  cause  of  regret  that  the  houses 
built  in  this  city  by  the  men  of  other  days  are  so  rap- 
idly going  to  destruction.  Only  yesterday  I  passed  the 
country  home  of  Alexander  Hamilton  at  One  Hun- 
dred and  Forty -third  Street  and  Tenth  Avenue, 
"The  Grange."  The  estate  was  purchased  some  time 
ago  and  divided  into  villa  lots,  with  the  intention 
of  making  the  homestead  one  of  the  "  desirable  resi- 
dences for  gentlemen  of  means,"  as  advertised.  But 
the  demand  for  villas  was  not  great,  and  the  land  was 
valuable,  and  already  the  home  of  Hamilton  is  en- 
closed on  two  sides  by  great  ramparts  of  red  -  brick 
blocks.  An  abomination  of  desolation  ranges  around 
the  house  which  but  a  year  ago  presented  a  scene  of 
rural  beauty,  and  a  pile  of  new  boards  is  laid  up  against 
the  fence  that  surrounds  the  group  of  thirteen  trees 


330  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

planted  by  the  hand  of  the  great  New  Yorker  who 
was  the  intimate  friend  as  well  as  comrade  in  the  field 
of  George  Washington,  and  the  first  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  I  think  that  if  my  father's  hand  had 
planted  those  trees,  I  would  stand  under  the  shadow 
of  Washington's  statue  on  Wall  Street,  and  hold  out 
my  hat  for  pennies  until  the  thirteen  were  redeemed 
and  saved  from  the  iconoclast,  or  the  hat  was  worn 
out.*  I  remember  what  a  fuss  was  made  when  the 
boyish  Prince  of  Wales  planted  a  tree  in  Central 
Park.  A  scrubby  little  Dutchman  of  an  oak  it  is,  and 
it  exists  but  in  a  sickly  manner,  yet  a  thousand  visit- 
ors ask  for  its  whereabouts  where  one  pilgrim  to  our 
local  shrines  inquires  as  to  the  fate  of  Alexander 
Hamilton's  trees,  and  fair  damsels  have  begged  the 
powers  that  be  for  a  leaf  or  an  acorn  from  the  prince's 
oak,  and  have  offered  gold  in  exchange  for  a  twig 
from  its  branches.  The  spreading  elm  under  which 
Washington  sat  upon  his  horse  on  "  the  Common  "  in 
front  of  our  present  City  Hall,  and  listened  to  the 
reading  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  his 
troops  at  sunset  of  July  9,  1776,  has  disappeared,  and 
the  old  pear-tree  of  Peter  Stuyvesant,  which  stood 

*  "  The  Grange"  has  been  removed  a  short  distance,  to  the  east 
side  of  Convent  Avenue,  where  its  preservation  seems  assured,  since  it 
is  now  the  property  of  St.  Luke's  parish  and  in  use  as  a  rectory.  By 
its  side  the  handsome  new  Church  of  St.  Luke's  is  going  up  (189$)  on 
the  corner  of  One  Hundred  and  Forty-first  Street.  The  Hamilton  trees 
still  remain,  across  the  avenue,  near  One  Hundred  and  Forty -third 
Street.  They  are  strongly  fenced  in  from  casual  injury.  At  a  recent 
sale  Mr.  O.  B.  Potter  bought  the  ground  upon  which  the  trees  stand, 
avowedly  to  prevent  their  destruction.  Some  correspondence  thereupon 
ensuing  in  the  Times  newspaper  cast  a  doubt  upon  the  belief  that  they 
were  planted  by  Hamilton,  but  the  weight  of  evidence  seems  to  support 
the  statement  of  the  text. 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW  YORK 


33* 


at  Third  Avenue  and  Thirteenth  Street,  a  patriarch 
whose  years  numbered  ten  score,  has  gone  the  way  of 
all  good  fruit-trees,  but  the  grove  that  Alexander  Ham- 
ilton planted  to  commemorate  these  United  States 
yet  stands  in  its  strength.  What  shall  we  do  with  it  ? 
I  like  to  make  a  patriotic  pilgrimage  on  all  of  our 
public  holidays,  and  I  have  a  companion  who  is  al- 
ways ready  to  join  me — my  little  son,  who,  fifty  years 
hence,  I  hope,  will  take  up  these  chronicles  again,  and 


•^•^rr^.  •>        "..! 

HOUSE   OF   NICHOLAS  WILLIAM  STUYVESANT 

write  the  story  of  the  city  as  he  sees  it  to-day.  Re- 
cently we  laid  out  our  tour  to  the  defences  that 
guarded  Manhattanville  in  the  two  wars  with  Great 


332 


A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


Britain,  in  which  the  spades  of  the  old  Continentals 
were  supplemented  by  British  sappers  and  miners, 
and  the  men  of  1812  came  in  after-years  to  complete 
the  line  of  protection  for  the  growing  city.  We  stood 
within  the  crumbling  stone  walls  of  Block- house  No. 
3,  as  it  was  known  in  the  last  war  with  Great  Britain, 
on  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-third  Street,  between 
Ninth  and  Tenth  avenues,  and  looked  eastward  to  the 
busy  city  that  covers  the  rough  plain  of  a  generation 


BLOCK-HOUSE    OVERLOOKING    HARLEM    RIVER,   1860 

ago.  At  our  feet  a  street  had  been  cut  through  forty 
feet  of  solid  rock,  and  broad  avenues  and  boulevards 
stretched  across  the  erstwhile  village  of  Manhattan- 
ville  and  up  the  steep  and  wooded  heights  beyond. 
The  walls  of  the  block -house  have  crumbled  at  the 
sides,  but  the  ruins  are  picturesque,  and  it  ought  to 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  333 

be  that  the  landscape-gardener  who  is  to  "improve" 
Morningside  Park  (within  whose  extreme  upper  boun- 
dary these  ruins  lie)  will  suffer  them  to  remain  un- 
touched.* 

But  more  interesting  than  these  mossy  walls  are  the 
earthworks  that  lie  beyond,  and  that  were  part  of  the 
line  of  defences  which  in  1812  stretched  diagonally 
across  the  island  from  Turtle  Bay  to  Harlem  Cove. 
In  the  hot  sun  we  clambered  up  a  steep  ascent  of 
rocks  abutting  on  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth 
Street,  between  Tenth  Avenue  and  the  Boulevard,  and 
reached  the  remains  of  an  earthwork,  whose  ram- 
parts were  breast-high  twenty-five  years  ago,  but  are 
now  not  higher  than  the  knee.  A  little  to  the  west 
and  south  is  a  second  redoubt,  on  another  eminence, 
whose  lines  are  more  distinct. f  These  earthworks 
were  originally  thrown  up  by  General  Washington's 
troops  during  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  and  under 

*  It  was  not  so  much  crumbling  as  depredation  that  reduced  these 
walls.  The  neighbors  found  them  an  easy  quarry  of  ready-cut  stone. 
This  has  been  stopped  since  the  Park  lines  have  been  thrown  around  the 
old  block-house,  which  is  now  under  careful  guardianship  of  the  Park 
Commissioners. — L. 

f  These  lines  are  most  distinct  on  the  north  face  ;  the  best  point  of 
view  is  from  the  east  side  of  the  Boulevard  at  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-fourth  Street  and  beyond.  The  visitor  to  the  site  of  this  forti- 
fication, ascending  the  bank  at  the  north-east  corner  of  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-second  Street  and  the  Boulevard,  will  observe  many  signs 
of  outlying  works  ;  a  shallow  trench  is  all  that  remains  of  the  old  cov- 
ered way  into  the  redoubt.  Between  this  and  the  redoubt  intervenes 
the  chasm  caused  by  the  costly  and  unnecessary  extension  of  One  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty-third  Street  through  the  high,  rocky  ledge.  Just  south 
of  Fort  Laight  the  still  more  costly  extension  of  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-fourth  Street  cuts  the  ridge.  Happily  these  street-openings 
(artificial  canons)  destroy  neither  of  the  main  earthworks.— L. 


334 


A    TOUR   AROUND  NEW   YORK 


cover  of  their  guns  the  troops  swept  down 
from  Harlem  Cove  and  drove  the  English 
vanguard,  with  great  loss,  from  Harlem  Plains 
and  within  their  upper  lines  of  fortification. 
The  first  of  these  works  was  known  during 
the  War  of  1812  as  Fort  Laight,  and  was  re- 
built and  occupied  by  our  city  militia.  In  a 
few  years,  no  doubt,  they  will  be  swept  away, 
for  the  land  is  private  property  and  is  beau- 
tiful for  situation.  A  soldier  who  had  fought 
in  Hancock's  brigade,  and  whose  modest  lit- 
tle home  is  just  in  the  rear,  told  me  the  story 
of  the  grassy  mounds,  and  we  exchanged  the 
greetings  of  comrades-in-arms,  while  Master 
Felix  Oldboy,  Jr.,  who  in  his  school  uniform 
of  cadet  gray  looked  the  most  soldierly  of 
the  trio,  listened  with  widely- opened  eyes, 
and  then  sought  the  shade  of  a  rock  to 
sketch  the  redoubt.  The  place  and  its  sur- 
roundings were  well  worth  the  work  of  the 
pencil. 

Our   pilgrimage    ended    at    Fort    George. 
The   remains  of  this  extensive  fortification 
stand  on  high  ground  west  of  the   Harlem 
River,  at  the  end  of  Tenth  Avenue,  and  ex- 
tend from  about  One  Hundred  and  Ninety- 
second  Street  to  One  Hundred  and  Ninety- 
sixth  Street.     The  soldiers 
of  Washington  first  discov- 
ered the  strategic  import- 
ance of  the  place  and  occu- 
pied   it  with    breastworks, 
FLAG-STAFF,  FORT  WASHINGTON     but  the  British  commander 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  335 

erected  an  extensive  and  strong  fortification  here  and 
named  it  Fort  George,  in  honor  of  the  heir  of  Eng- 
land's crown.  Its  green  ramparts 
are  still  sharply  defined,  and  afford 
a  broad  walk  on  their  tops,  and 
the  outlying  redoubts  can  be 
traced  very  distinctly.  The  spot 
was  full  of  holiday  pilgrims  when 
we  reached  it,  but  whether  they 

.  PLAN    OF   FORT  WASH- 

knew    the    story    or    only    went  INGTON 

there  for  recreation  I  could  not 
tell.  It  is  very  safe  to  say  that  no  other  such  view, 
and  none  equal  to  it  in  beauty,  can  be  found  on  the 
Island  of  Manhattan.  To  the  extreme  west  the  Pal- 
isades lifted  their  wooded  heads,  and  between  the 
green  heights  of  Inwood  and  Fort  Washington  the 
Hudson  lay  glittering  in  the  afternoon  sun.  In  front 
lay  the  long  stretch  of  low  ground  through  which  the 
Kingsbridge  Road  winds  its  rustic  way.  Spuyten  Duy- 
vil  Creek  and  Harlem  River,  with  the  uplands  be- 
yond, formed  the  north  and  east  of  the  landscape,  and 
the  eye  could  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  High  Bridge.  I 
stood  on  the  ramparts  that  Washington  had  built 
and  Howe  had  finished,  and  worshipped  with  my  eye 
these  beauties  of  the  city  of  my  love.  As  the  little 
lad  who  had  been  sketching  at  the  foot  of  the  glacis 
ran  forward,  I  wondered  what  the  landscape  would 
look  like  when  he  comes  to  write  another  "  Tour " 
fifty  years  hence.  He  will  show  his  sketches  to  his 
grandchildren,  and  speak  of  his  pilgrimage  to  Fort 
George  on  a  sunshiny  afternoon  in  a  September  of 
long  ago.  And  I  ?  Well,  I  shall  then  be  telling  my 
grandmother  all  about  it,  too. 


336  A   TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK 


CHAPTER    XXVII 

AN  UNEXPLORED  REGION  —  TRACES  OF  COWBOYS  AND  HESSIANS  — 
LORDS  OF  THE  MANOR — THROUGH  A  GLASS  DARKLY — OLD  HOMES 
AND  HAUNTS 

ONE  Sunday  I  was  whirled  in  the  railway  cars  along 
the  banks  of  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek  to  the  vicinity  of 
the  spot  where  Anthony  the  Trumpeter  had  come  to 
grief.  It  was  an  extra  day  in  the  "  Tour,"  for,  with 
the  advent  of  a  red  tinge  to  the  maple  leaves,  and  the 
purpling  of  the  oak  tops,  and  with  the  opening  of  the 
reign  of  golden-rod  and  gentian  and  aster,  there  had 
come  an  irresistible  desire  to  explore  the  terra  incog- 
nita of  New  York,  the  land  lying  north  of  Kingsbridge, 
known  little  to  the  denizens  of  this  big  city,  except- 
ing real  estate  speculators  and  antiquaries.  It  is  a 
land  of  stately  old  homes  and  luxurious  modern  resi- 
dences ;  of  the  forest  primeval  and  the  landscape-gar- 
dener's effects ;  of  modern  avenues  and  ancient  creeks 
and  swamps  ;  of  aesthetic  interiors  and  of  old-fashioned 
window-seats,  in  which  Continental  soldier  and  Hes- 
sian hireling  alternately  lounged ;  of  lake  and  creek, 
and  highland  and  meadow ;  of  mounted  policemen 
and  letter-boxes  and  steam  fire-engines  ;  of  fields  and 
hills  that  have  not  changed  their  contour  since  Peter 
Stuyvesant's  solid  men-at-arms  marched  over  them, 
and  King  George  allotted  their  fertile  acres  to  his 
liege  subjects.  It  is  a  land,  too,  that  lies  within  the 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


337 


city  limits,  and  I,  Felix  Oldboy,  wearied  of  beholding 
only  that  which  modern  hands  had  improved  out  of 
all  recollection,  yearned  for  a  leisure  Sunday  under 
oaks  and  chestnuts  in  city  woods,  which  should  recall 
the  days  of  fishing  in  "  Sunfish  Pond  "  on  Beekman 
Hill,  and  of  gathering  autumn  leaves  on  the  Bloom- 
ingdale  Road,  that  used  to  stretch  from  Union  Square 
to  Kingsbridge  in  an  unbroken  panorama  of  rural 
loveliness. 

There  is  nothing  more  beautiful  in  the  way  of  land- 
scape than  that  which  greets  the  eye  where  Spuyten 


CONFLUENCE   OF   SPUYTEN    DUYVIL   CREEK   AND    THE   HUDSON 


338  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

Duyvil  Creek  joins  its  waters  to  the  Hudson  —  the 
lake-like  rivers  overlooked  by  wooded  heights  on  ei- 
ther side,  while  beyond  the  Palisades  rise  abruptly  in 
their  grandeur,  and  distant  hills  to  the  east  complete 
a  picture  worthy  of  the  pencil  of  Claude.  At  Kings- 
bridge,  too,  there  is  much  pastoral  loveliness.  The 
silver  thread  of  Tibbett's  Brook  (Mosholu,  in  the  Ind- 
ian tongue)  wanders  up  through  the  vale  of  Yonkers, 
with  frowning  ridges  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other 
meadows  and  orchards,  over  which  hills  crowned  with 
the  green  of  ancient  forest  trees  stand  sentinel.  One 
can  walk  in  almost  any  direction  and  soon  be  able  to 
fancy  himself  living  in  the  times  of  long  ago,  or  any- 
where else  save  within  the  municipal  boundaries  of 
the  chief  city  of  the  New  World.  It  is  fortunate  for 
future  generations  that  much  of  this  landscape  loveli- 
ness is  to  be  preserved  in  the  new  Van  Cortlandt  Park, 
which  will  be  about  two  miles  in  length  and  one  mile 
broad.  The  land  affords  every  variety  of  landscape, 
and  its  natural  features  render  it  a  far  more  desirable 
acquisition  than  Central  Park.  Originally  part  of  the 
great  Phillipse  fief,  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Van 
Cortlandts  in  1699,  when  the  head  of  that  house  mar- 
ried Eva  Phillipse,  daughter  of  the  patroon.  Time 
has  brought  few  changes  to  these  lands  since  the  days 
of  the  Revolution. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  city  authorities  will  pre- 
serve from  destruction  the  old  Van  Cortlandt  man- 
sion-house. It  is  a  large  edifice  of  stone,  unpreten- 
tious in  its  way,  and  yet  possessing  a  stateliness  of  its 
own  that  grows  upon  the  visitor.  Erected  in  1748— 
the  date  is  on  its  front — it  preserves  within  and  with- 
out many  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  last  century.  One 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK  339 

of  the  rooms  in  especial  is  unchanged  since  the  time 
when  the  Hessian  commandant  of  the  Green  Yagers 
occupied  it,  and  General  Washington  made  it  .his 
headquarters  just  before  his  triumphal  entry  into  New 
York  on  Evacuation  Day,  1783.  Around  the  fireplace 
are  old-fashioned  blue  tiles,  that  tell  Scriptural  stories 
in  the  quaint  method  of  illustration  then  prevailing, 
where  saint  and  sinner  were  alike,  as  my  grandmother 
would  say,  "  a  sight  to  behold."  The  deep  window- 
seats  are  admirably  suggestive  of  a  quiet  smoke  for 
the  elders  and  cosey  flirtations  for  the  younger  people. 
Andirons,  which  have  a  history  of  their  own,  speak 
comfortable  words  of  the  day  of  back-logs  and  plente- 
ous brushwood.  As  for  the  furniture,  it  is  again  in 
fashion  and  most  valuable,  for  it  is  genuine  in  its  an- 
tiquity. Jarvis,  Copley,  Stewart,  and  Chapman  have 
furnished  the  family  portraits,  one  of  which  is  that  of 
a  knighted  vice-admiral  of  the  British  Navy. 

But  thereby  hangs  a  tale.  Outside,  above  the  old- 
fashioned  windows,  are  some  exceedingly  grim  visages 
carved  in  stone  in  the  shape  of  corbels,  whose  serious, 
not  to  say  morose,  aspect  would  be  calculated  to  drive 
away  any  sensitive  tramp  in  affright.  Pointing  up  to 
them,  my  quondam  school-mate,  Bowie  Dash,  who 
occupies  an  ideal  cottage  embowered  by  the  trees 
that  fringe  the  ridge  through  which  Riverdale  Ave- 
nue sweeps,  remarked,  "  Those  are  the  portraits  of 
the  Van  Cortlandt  ancestors  —  family  portraits,  all  of 
them."  "  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Van  Cortlandt,  with  all  seri- 
ousness, "  and  that  particularly  solemn  one  yonder 
was  carved  after  he  had  been  out  all  night  with  the 
boys." 

The  windows  themselves  present  an  interesting  sci- 


340  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

entific  problem.  Upon  two  sides  of  the  house  the 
glass  has  all  the  appearance  of  ground  glass,  though 
it  was  perfectly  transparent  when  first  placed  there. 
Closer  examination  reveals  a  process  of  disintegra- 
tion, spiculae  of  glass  falling  off  when  scraped  by  the 
finger-nails.  Amateur  scientists  have  been  unable  to 
account  for  it.  Exposure  to  the  salt-water  of  Mosho- 
lu  Creek  would  be  a  plausible  theory  if  all  the  glass 
fared  alike.  But  some  years  ago  the  rows  of  stately 
box,  venerable  for  their  height  and  antiquity,  which 
stood  in  the  old  garden  and  faced  the  windows  that 
exhibit  this  phenomenon,  were  cut  down,  and  the 
glass  that  has  been  inserted  since  that  time  shows  no 
sign  of  change  or  decay.  Whether  the  combination 
of  box  scents  and  salt  air  will  account  for  the  problem 
is  a  matter  which  only  experimental  science  can  de- 
termine, and  Mr.  Van  Cortlandt  would  be  very  glad 
to  have  the  puzzle  solved. 

There  is  scarcely  a  foot  of  ground  about  Kings- 
bridge  that  is  not  historical.  Here  the  British  had 
their  outposts  in  the  Revolution.  Both  sides  erected 
earthworks  on  the  adjacent  hills.  Skirmishes  were 
frequent  in  these  meadows,  and  many  lives  were  sac- 
rificed. Relics  of  the  war — cannon-balls,  bayonets, 
skeletons  in  full  uniform  —  have  been  turned  up  by 
spade  and  plough,  and  many  more  are  awaiting  their 
resurrection  at  the  hands  of  public  improvements. 
The  old  tavern  at  Kingsbridge  saw  lively  times  in 
peace  as  well  as  war.  The  Albany  post-road  passed 
its  door,  and  teams  and  passengers  baited  here.  Dain- 
ty dames  in  lofty  headgear  and  ample  hoops  have 
danced  with  the  sons  of  the  patroons  on  its  floors,  and 
smugglers  have  made  it  their  headquarters  for  lawless 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


341 


forays.  Going,  going,  gone.  The  public  surveyor 
and  the  modern  apartment-house  are  in  hot  pursuit  of 
these  romantic  old  localities.  One  has  only  to  turn 
into  Riverdale  Avenue  to  be  aware  that  the  luxurious 
civilization  of  the  period  is  learning  to  appreciate  the 
beauties  of  this  neighborhood,  which,  when  I  was  a 
boy,  was  associated  with  the  names  of  Lispenard 
Stewart,  Abraham 
Schermerhorn,  Ack- 
erman,  Delafield, 
Wetmore,and  Whit- 
ing. 

It  will  be  a  pity  to 
blot  out  the  natural 
beauties  of  the  spot 
for  the  sake  of  a  lit- 
tle more  brick  and 
mortar  —  at  least,  I 
thought  so  last  Sun- 
day as  I  climbed  up 
Riverdale  Avenue 
and  fancied  myself 
temporarily  in  Ely- 
sium. Riding  is  too 
rapid  a  gait  to  al- 
low of  realizing  the 
beauty  of  forest,  ra- 
vine, meadow,  hill- 
side, brook,  and 
homes  enshrined  in 

landscape  loveliness  which  is  presented  to  the  pedes- 
trian on  either  side  of  the  road.  Tired  ?  Not  a  bit  of 
it,  even  if  I  am  growing  stout,  and  this  is  considerable 


THE  LANE  IN  VAN  CORTLANDT  PARK. 


342  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

of  a  hill  to  climb.  I  am  looking  at  that  maple.  Did 
you  ever  see  such  a  splendor  of  crimson  and  gold  as 
lights  up  its  top  and  sides?  That  fringed  gentian- 
are  not  its  purple  spikes  a  delectable  contrast  to  the 
sunny  clusters  of  its  taller  neighbor,  the  golden-rod  ? 
The  oak  leaves  are  turning  ruddy,  too,  as  if  they  had 
been  imbibing  freely  of  the  autumn's  product.  These 
old  fellows  have  a  right  to  be  jolly,  too,  for  they  were 
children  at  the  time  when  Hendrik  Hudson  anchored 
in  Spuyten  Duyvil  Creek,  and  shot  a  falcon  at  two 
hundred  Indians  who  had  gathered  on  shore  to  dis- 
pute the  right  of  way,  and  dispersed  them  with  the 
noise  and  execution  of  this  terrible  weapon. 

There  is  one  oak  still  standing  in  a  little  wood  that 
has  known  no  change  for  a  century,  which  has  a  his- 
tory of  its  own.  It  is  a  sturdy  tree  with  ample  brown 
arms,  clad  to-day  in  a  royal  robe  of  purple,  and  defi- 
ant seemingly  of  all  changes  except  such  as  the  icon- 
oclastic axe  of  the  woodman  may  bring.  You  can 
see  it  from  the  road.  Under  its  branches,  so  my  in- 
formant tells  me,  a  horse  that  bore  a  good  soldier  of 
the  Union  all  through  the  late  war,  and  whose  gray 
coat  is  still  presentable,  is  grazing  peacefully.  But  in 
other  days  these  great  gnarled  limbs  bore  other  fruit. 
Tradition  affirms  that  during  the  war  of  the  Revolu- 
tion more  than  thirty  cowboys  were  hanged  from  this 
oak,  and  the  annals  of  those  days  bear  out  the  popu- 
lar legend.  This  was  part  of  the  "  neutral  ground  " 
of  '76 — a  territory  extending  from  Harlem  River  to 
the  Croton,  which  was  ravaged  with  engaging  impar- 
tiality by  the  camp-followers  of  both  armies.  The 
British  called  themselves  irregulars,  but  the  name 
"  cowboys  "  could  not  be  wiped  out,  and  their  punish- 


A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 


343 


ment  was  never  irregular  when  they  were  caught. 
The  gentlemen  who  did  the  same  favor  to  the  Conti- 
nental flag  were  called  "  skinners,"  and  their  shrift 
was  an  equally  short  one  when  caught.  Usually  the 
latter  had  the  best  of  the  game,  because  the  sympa- 
thies of  all  except  the  large  landed  proprietors  were 
with  the  colonies. 

Beyond  the  wild  primeval  wood  that  holds  this  his- 
toric oak  stands  what  seems  to  me,  for  situation  and 

surroundings,  the  most 
beautiful  home  in  the  city. 
A  stately  stone  mansion, 
half  covered  with  vines  and 


VAN   CORTLANDT   MANOR-HOUSE 
[See  also  p.  317] 

encircled  by  thirteen  majestic  elms,  stands  on  a 
knoll  which  overlooks  the  Mosholu  Valley  and  gives 
glimpses  of  twenty  miles  away.  Nature  did  nearly 
all  that  was  possible  for  its  seventeen  acres,  and  the 
landscape-gardener  has  finished  it.  At  one  side  all  is 


344  A  TOUR  AROUND  NEW  YORK 

wildly  picturesque,  with  ravine  and  brook  and  masses 
of  rock ;  on  the  other  civilization  has  done  its  best, 
and  equally  admirably.  On  an  apple-tree,  still  stand- 
ing, Jacobus  Van  Cortlandt  carved  his  name  nearly 
two  centuries  ago,  and  the  stout  stone  farm-house 
that  another  Van  Cortlandt  built  in  1766  shelters  the 
coachman's  family.  The  place  is  now  owned  by  Mr. 
Waldo  Hutchins,  who  has  been  living  there  for  the 
past  twenty  years. 

Broad  piazzas,  a  hall  of  ample  width  that  shows  no 
sign  of  a  stairway,  great  rooms  with  high  ceilings, 
thick  walls,  and  large  windows  recall  the  old  baronial 
homes  of  Virginia.  But  there  the  resemblance  ceases, 
save  in  the  matter  of  baronial  hospitality,  for  modern 
luxury  clothes  the  interior  more  royally  than  our  an- 
cestors dreamed  of — and,  it  must  be  confessed,  more 
comfortably.  Of  the  family  heirlooms  within,  two 
portraits  taken  from  life  interested  me  most.  One  is 
of  Noah  Webster — the  maternal  grandfather  of  Mrs. 
Hutchins — the  patient,  industrious  builder  of  the  dic- 
tionary, who  wrought  at  his  work  for  twenty  years, 
until  his  fingers  became  stiff  from  using  the  pen,  and 
he  fainted  away  when  he  had  written  the  word  "  Fi- 
nis." No  wonder.  I  held  some  of  his  manuscript  in 
my  hand,  and  it  made  me  tired  to  look  at  its  intrica- 
cies, it  was  so  suggestive  of  hard  work.  The  other 
portrait  presents  Oliver  Ellsworth,  the  paternal  grand- 
father of  Mrs.  Hutchins,  in  his  robe  of  Chief-justice 
of  the  United  States,  only  with  the  addition  of  a  red 
velvet  collar  to  set  off  the  sombreness  of  the  heavy 
folds  of  black  silk.  His  is  a  typical  New  England 
face,  intellectual,  determined,  and  strong.  A  later 
generation  has  forgotten  that  after  the  "Virginia 


A  TOUR   AROUND   NEW   YORK  345 

plan  "  had  been  adopted  by  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention of  1787,  on  the  basis  of  a  "national  Govern- 
ment," or  a  single  republic,  in  contradistinction  to  a 
Federal  Union  of  separate  States,  on  motion  of  Mr. 
Ellsworth  the  word  "  national "  was  stricken  out  and 
the  words  "Government  of  the  United  States"  sub- 
stituted in  its  place. 

Riverdale  Avenue  forms  a  beautiful  drive.  Its 
roadway  is  as  smooth  as  any  drive  in  Central  Park, 
and  it  has  every  advantage  in  the  way  of  scenery. 
But  this  holds  good  only  up  to  the  city  line,  beyond 
which  point  the  Yonkers  authorities  seem  to  look 
upon  it  as  a  country  road,  and  treat  it  accordingly. 
The  castellated  mansion  which  Edwin  Forrest  built, 
and  which  he  named  Font  Hill,  marks  the  end  of  the 
city  limits.  It  long  ago  passed  into  the  hands  of  a 
religious  sisterhood,  who  use  it  for  school  purposes. 
Poor  Forrest !  He  had  no  taste  for  domestic  life,  and 
his  happiest  hours  were  passed  upon  the  stage.  Chance 
brought  me  frequently,  when  a  boy,  into  the  company 
of  his  wife  and  her  sisters,  Mrs.  Voorhees  and  Miss 
Virginia  Sinclair,  and  all  my  boyish  sympathies  were 
enlisted  in  their  behalf  and  against  the  man  who  had 
slandered  the  woman  who  bore  his  name.  I  never 
pass  the  neighborhood  of  the  old  city  residence  of 
Forrest,  on  Twenty-second  Street,  near  Eighth  Ave- 
nue, but  I  think  of  this  unhappy  episode.  Font  Hill 
is  the  monument  of  his  blasted  hopes. 

One  would  think  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  live  in 
sight  of  the  Palisades  of  the  Hudson,  but  a  gentleman 
who  occupied  a  house  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  for 
several  years  assures  me  that  his  experience  was  dis- 
enchanting. The  sight  of  that  tall  barrier  of  rock  and 


346  A   TOUR   AROUND    NEW   YORK 

woods  beyond  the  silver  waves  of  the  Hudson  grew 
terribly  monotonous.  He  wanted  to  throw  it  down 
and  get  a  glimpse  of  the  lovelier  landscape  that  he 
knew  lay  beyond  it.  A  sense  of  imprisonment  crept 
over  him,  and  he  was  glad  at  last  to  move  away.  His 
paradise  of  the  Palisades  had  its  apple-tree  and  ser- 
pent. Viewed  in  this  light,  there  was  an  element  of 
reality  in  the  joke  of  that  wild  wag,  Fred  Cozzens, 
who  astonished  the  people  of  Kingsbridge  and  Yonk- 
ers  by  deliberately  proposing  to  whitewash  the  Pali- 
sades. He  argued  that  the  effect  would  be  wholesome 
to  the  eye  and  refreshing  to  the  public  taste,  while  it 
would  break  the  monotony  of  the  landscape,  and  give 
them  something  bright  and  clean  to  look  at  instead  of 
venerable  and  dusty  rocks.  Such  was  his  apparent 
sincerity  and  earnestness  that  he  found  many  sympa- 
thizers, and  for  a  while  the  contest  over  the  proposi- 
tion raged  hotly. 

As  I  steal  back  to  the  lower  city,  and  the  thousands 
of  lights  that  dot  Harlem  Plains  break  into  sight,  like 
the  sudden  rush  and  twinkle  of  a  myriad  of  huge  fire- 
flies, I  got  to  wondering  at  a  letter  which  came  to  me 
a  few  days  before.  Was  it  a  joke?  The  writer  more 
than  hints  that  Felix  Oldboy  knows  nothing  of  "  the 
elite  of  the  city  in  former  years."  Perhaps  not.  But 
how  the  men  and  women  of  those  days  would  have 
smiled  at  the  word  "  e"lite."  Most  of  them  never 
heard  it,  probably,  and  none  of  them  would  have  suf- 
fered their  names  to  be  printed  in  an  "  Elite  Direc- 
tory." Fancy  one  of  the  sons  of  the  Knickerbockers 
being  asked  if  he  belonged  to  the  "  e"lite !"  One  rea- 
son, I  think,  why  Felix  Oldboy  loves  the  New  York 
of  former  times,  and  seldom  passes  one  of  its  historic 


A  TOUR  AROUND   NEW  YORK  347 

points  without  some  such  quickening  of  the  pulse  as 
he  feels  when  some  one  speaks  of  fields  in  the  late 
war  upon  which  he  drew  a  sword,  is  that  he  has  an 
ancestral  interest  in  them.  When  Congress  called  for 
troops  in  1775,  Colonel  Oldboy,  my  ancestor,  led  a 
battalion  into  the  field,  and  his  oldest  son,  also  an  an- 
cestor of  mine,  commanded  a  company  in  it.  On  his 
manorial  estate,  which  his  father  had  held  before  him, 
his  wife  held  high  state,  and  those  who  wished  to 
stand  well  in  her  eyes  always  addressed  her  as  Lady 
Oldboy.  It  is  said  to  have  been  an  -awesome  sight 
when  Lady  Washington  and  Lady  Oldboy  met  and 
exchanged  stately  courtesies.  Lafayette,  who  was 
an  ardent  personal  friend  of  Colonel  Oldboy,  and  pre- 
sented him  at  one  time  with  an  elegant  suit  that  had 
just  arrived  from  Paris,  whose  most  striking  ingredi- 
ent was  a  bright  green  silk  waistcoat  that  is  still  pre- 
served in  the  family,  was  a  conspicuous  figure  at  Lady 
Oldboy's  manorial  receptions.  Were  these  stately 
old  souls  the  "  elite?"  If  they  were,  they  did  not 
know  it,  and  I,  for  one,  would  not  have  liked  to  call 
them,  to  their  face,  by  such  a  name. 

As  for  the  rest,  these  papers  were  not  intended  as  a 
topical  or  social  history.  They  are  simply  the  record 
of  a  random  tour  through  places  whose  acquaintance 
I  made  as  a  boy,  that  recall  the  people  of  other  days 
whom  I  have  known. 

"  Felix,"  said  my  grandmother,  "  always  cut  your 
cloth  by  your  pattern." 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


CHAPTER   I 

FELIX  OLDBOY'S  HOT  WEATHER  HOME— ON  THE  EAST  RIVER,  FACING 
HELL  GATE — A  STATELY  MANSION  OF  SEVENTY-FIVE  YEARS  AGO 
— SOLITUDE  IN  THE  CITY 

I  DISCOVERED  it.  A  new  De  Soto,  in  panta- 
loons, coat  of  broadcloth  and  silk  hat — most  degen- 
erate successors  of  the  velvets  and  lace  and  plumes  of 
three  centuries  ago.  I  was  making  a  pedestrian  voyage 
through  the  old  haunts  of  my  boyhood  when  I  sight- 
ed a  lonely  acre  of  ground  in  which  stood  an  ancient 
house  and  some  still  more  venerable  trees.  To  the 
eye  of  the  casual  voyager  it  was  a  wreck  amid  the 
spick  and  span  newness  of  the  busy  town  that  had 
grown  up  around  it  and  overshadowed  its  age  with 
noise  and  bustle,  but  I  knew  better.  To  me  it  was  an 
oasis  amid  a  desert  of  strange  faces  and  crowding 
streets.  Not  Robinson  Crusoe  was  more  delighted 
with  the  treasures  of  his  island  home  in  the  Pacific 
than  I  with  this  acre  of  sunshine  and  grasses  and 
green  leaves,  lapped  by  the  tides  of  a  swift  river  on 
one  side  and  by  the  waves  of  sound  from  a  great  city 
all  about  it.  The  hand  of  improvement  had  claimed 


35O  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

the  house  for  its  own,  and  the  progress  of  prosperity 
had  decreed  its  destruction.  But  I  pleaded  for  yet 
another  year  of  its  life,  and  my  prayer  was  heard. 
Some  of  my  friends  smiled  at  the  madness  of  the 
project,  and  others  prophesied  that  I  would  soon 
weary  of  my  exile,  and  others  yet  again  drew  enticing 
pictures  of  the  pleasures  to  be  found  at  the  sea-side 
and  in  the  mountains;  but  these  things  were  as  little 
to  the  purpose  as  warnings  that  the  heat  of  the  dog- 
days  would  beat  pitilessly  upon  the  house,  and  the 
dust  of  droughts  encompass  it.  I  persisted  in  my 
plan  and  in  the  early  spring  moved  with  a  strange  de- 
light, that  somehow  felt  like  the  quickening  pulse  of 
boyhood,  into  what  my  daughter  Nellie  was  pleased 
to  call  the  ark. 

My  summer  acre  fronts  upon  the  East  River,  near 
the  spot  where  the  waters  of  Hell  Gate  begin  to 
seethe  and  swirl.  Standing  on  the  little  bluff  in 
which  its  garden  ends,  and  towards  which  its  velvety 
lawn  descends  from  the  back  porch,  one  can  see  the 
rarest  and  loveliest  of  pictures.  Across  and  up  the 
river  where  Pot  Rock  once  made  the  waters  boil  and 
the  Frying  Pan  was  a  terror  to  navigators ;  where 
Flood  Rock  is  alternately  submerged  and  exposed  by 
the  tides ;  where  the  Hog's  Back  and  Nigger's  Head 
yet  wreck  an  occasional  vessel ;  where  the  shaded 
river  road  of  Astoria  allows  rare  glimpses  of  stately 
mansions  between  the  trees,  and  the  green  ramparts 
of  Ward's  Island  are  wondrous  pleasant  to  the  eye 
and  hide  other  lovely  islands  beyond  that  are  fruitful 
of  legends  as  of  lobsters — are  stretches  of  scenery  than 
which  there  is  nothing  more  beautiful  on  the  Atlantic 
coast  line.  Back  of  me  and  on  either  hand  may  be 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  351 

heard  the  coarse  melody  of  the  hand-organ,  the  stri- 
dent shriek  of  steam,  the  shouts  of  children  at  play  in 
the  streets,  the  ceaseless  undertone  of  wagon  and  in- 
cessant hum  of  labor,  and  the  puff  of  steamboat  and 
clatter  of  tug  may  be  heard  upon  the  waters;  but  the 
sunshine  turns  the  silver  of  the  breakers  upon  the  rocks 
to  gold,  the  shadows  of  overhanging  trees  mirror  them- 
selves in  the  quiet  waters  of  tiny  bays,  the  little  hills 
are  clothed  with  beauty  as  with  a  garment,  and  I  have 
enough  of  imagination  left  to  fancy  myself  in  Arcadia. 
The  house  is  as  old  as  our  second  war  with  Great 
Britain.  It  was  built  for  the  summer  residence  of  a 
family  whose  city  mansion  was  then  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  Bowling  Green.  Built  in  a  most  substan- 
tial manner  of  wood,  it  is  two  stories  in  height,  sur- 
mounted by  a  "  gallery  " — a  flattened  top  to  its  slightly 
sloping  roof  that  is  fenced  in  by  a  light  and  graceful 
railing.  Here,  at  the  close  of  the  summer  day,  the 
family  would  gather  to  enjoy  the  sunset  hour,  and 
here,  not  infrequently,  tea  was  handed  around,  to  be 
followed  by  supper  at  a  later  hour.  Seen  from  the 
street,  the  building  is  long  and  low,  painted  white, 
with  a  wide  porch  upheld  by  plain  white  columns, 
smooth  and  round,  extending  along  the  entire  front 
as  well  as  the  rear.  The  windows  have  small  panes, 
and  the  shutters  are  of  solid  wood  with  round  holes 
cut  through  the  tops.  The  north  side  is  shaded  by 
an  immense  elm  that  must  have  been  mature  when 
the  house  was  born,  and  at  the  south  side  are  a  cluster 
of  ancient  cherry-trees,  whose  scant  blossoms  in  April 
were  like  the  white  locks  on  the  head  of  fourscore 
years.  Honeysuckle  vines  almost  cover  the  porch ; 
lilac  bushes  rise  up  to  hide  the  view  of  garden  and 


352  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

lawn,  and  a  gigantic  pine,  that  tradition  declares  to  be 
older  than  the  Union,  stands  sentinel  at  the  front 
gate.  It  is  small  wonder  that  I  loved  the  place  when 
I  saw  it. 

Within  the  house  there  was  an  air  of  by-gone  state- 
liness  in  the  wide  central  hall  and  large,  empty  rooms 
on  either  side,  which  my  daughter  Nellie  (her  name 
by  baptism  is  Eleanor)  has  toned  down  into  an  at- 
mosphere of  enticing  comfort  by  the  deft  witchery  of 
a  woman's  touch.  The  solid  mahogany  doors  and 
oaken  wainscoting  are  still  there,  but  portieres  and 
rugs,  sleepy  hollows  of  chairs  and  lounges  that  irre- 
sistibly invite  to  forty  winks  of  sleep,  have  lessened 
their  imposing  effect,  and  I  have  only  partly  revived 
the  antique  by  insisting  upon  dining  at  my  grand- 
mother's massive  mahogany  table,  having  my  ancient 
mahogany  chairs  with  tall  backs  placed  on  guard  in 
hall  and  parlor,  and  having  time  dealt  out  to  us  by  a 
clock  above  whose  face  the  moon  rolls  out  its  changes 
and  whose  case  reaches  quite  up  to  the  ceiling.  Thus 
the  old  keeps  its  ground,  even  if  the  new  challenges 
it  at  every  turn. 

"  Snug,"  said  my  friend,  the  old  colonel,  as  he  stood 
in  the  hall  and  looked  about  him,  taking  in,  with  a 
twitch  of  satisfaction  at  his  mouth,  the  wood  fire  that 
blazed  on  the  parlor  hearth  in  the  chill  May  morn- 
ing. "  Upon  my  word,  Felix,  it  is  not  half  as  bad  as 
it  might  be.  For  a  dreamer  like  you,  it's  snug."  That 
was  praise  indeed.  For  be  it  known  that  the  colonel, 
who  prides  himself  upon  being  a  man  of  action,  labors 
under  the  conceit  that,  because  I  love  the  past  and  am 
apt  to  be  happy  in  the  company  of  ghosts,  and,  in- 
deed, at  times  to  seek  their  fellowship,  I  am  a  dreamer. 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  355 

He  is  young,  intensely  young.  His  family  Bible  de- 
clares that  he  has  passed  the  earthly  limit  of  four- 
score years,  and  this  one  fact  has  almost  led  me  to 
doubt  the  testimony  of  that  book  and  to  declare  my- 
self an  agnostic.  Though  I  am  much  his  junior,  he 
persists  in  declaring  that  I  am  the  elder  of  the  two, 
and  to  look  at  him  one  might  believe  him  my  con- 
temporary in  years.  When  he  enters  and  calls  for  me 
to  come  out  and  take  a  constitutional,  I  drop  pen  or 
book  and  surrender  at  discretion.  If  on  these  occa- 
sions I  can  get  off  with  a  march  of  five  miles,  I  count 
myself  fortunate.  I  verily  believe  he  will  be  able  to 
do  his  ten  miles  a  day  when  he  rounds  the  century 
point. 

If  the  old  colonel  has  an  aggressive  quality  it  is  his 
intensity.  He  does  nothing  by  halves.  Upright  in 
every  thought  and  act,  he  would  never  be  content  to 
go  to  a  half-way  heaven,  or  send  his  enemies  to  a  half- 
way hell.  Yet  he  has  the  heart  of  a  little  child.  To 
hear  him  after  a  ferocious  fashion  pitch  into  radicalism 
— for  he  imagines  himself  the  most  consistent  of  con- 
servatives—  with  an  emphasis  that  might  lead  the 
black  cook  in  the  kitchen  to  imagine  that  the  house 
is  on  fire,  while  all  the  time  he  is  caressing  a  purring 
kitten  on  his  ample  knee  and  its  mother  sits  blinking 
confidingly  at  him,  is  to  inspire  the  spectator  with  a 
doubt  whether  he,  the  spectator,  has  as  yet  really  ac- 
quired a  knowledge  of  human  nature.  On  these  oc- 
casions I  am  as  speechless  as  the  cats.  Like  them,  I 
blink ;  superior  to  them,  I  smoke,  and  hide  myself  be- 
hind a  cloud.  But  Nellie  has  only  to  raise  a  finger, 
and  the  voice  of  the  old  warrior,  who  is  her  devoted 
slave,  sinks  almost  to  a  whisper.  Mistress  Nell  knows 


356  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

her  power,  and  does  not  hesitate  to  exercise  it.  In 
fact,  as  between  her  little  ladyship  in  the  parlor  and 
massive  Diana  in  the  kitchen,  I  am  always  ready  to 
own  the  inferiority  of  my  sex — inside  the  house,  of 
course.  But  to  see  the  old  colonel  meet  and  exchange 
compliments  with  his  enslaver,  after  the  stately  meth- 
ods of  sixty  years  ago,  is  a  lesson  in  manners  which  I 
cannot  help  wishing  were  taught  in  our  clubs  of  to- 
day. 

Our  cats  are  three  in  number.  Nebuchadnezzar,  an 
immense  feline  symphony  in  yellow  and  white,  is  my 
special  property,  and  usually  answers  to  the  name  of 
"  Neb."  Martha  Washington,  whose  attire  is  an  un- 
broken black,  is  more  generally  known  as  "  Pat."  I 
have  my  doubts  whether  the  Father  of  his  Country 
ever  called  Mrs.  Washington  "  Pat,"  or  would  have 
dared  to  do  so,  but  he  speaks  frequently  in  his  letters 
and  diary  of  his  favorite  niece,  his  "  dearest  Patsey." 
Satan,  the  small  black  son  of  Martha  Washington, 
completes  the  group.  Very  important  are  these  three 
to  my  life  in  my  summer  acre.  I  cannot  make  the 
round  of  my  domains  in  comfort  unless  Nebuchad- 
nezzar is  trotting  at  my  heels,  and  Mrs.  W.  is  the 
faithful  attendant  and  beloved  confidant  of  Master 
Felix  Oldboy,  Jr.,  aged  fourteen.  As  for  Satan,  he 
shall  speak  for  himself. 

Nellie  laughs  at  my  idea  of  contentment  in  an  acre. 
Even  so  did  I  laugh  in  my  youth.  Bless  her  heart, 
and  keep  it  childlike !  I  know  that  by-and-by  will 
come  a  time  when  she  will  understand  how  it  is  that 
an  acre  is  a  world  to  a  child  of  threescore,  and  will 
realize  that  my  sunshine  is  as  full  of  warmth  and 
splendor  as  if  I  were  possessor  of  an  estate  as  big  as  a 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE 


357 


township.  I  sit  watching  the  moon  rise  over  the  bub- 
bling waters  of  Hell  Gate,  and  hold  in  my  hand  the 
slender  palm  of  my  little  boy — the  Benjamin  of  my 
riper  years — whose  love  I  would  not  exchange  for  the 
crown  of  the  czars.  The  boy  turns  and  smiles  as  if 
he  had  read  my  thoughts,  and  Nebuchadnezzar  sol- 
emnly rises,  rubs  himself  against  us,  and  purs  a  whole 
hymn  of  happiness. 


AN   OLD-TIME    FIRE-CAP 


358  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 


CHAPTER    II 

THE    DARK    PHANTOM   WHICH    DOGGED    A    POSTMAN'S    FEET  —  A    GAR- 
DEN  CALENDAR — NOTES   OF   THE   FARM   ACRE 

THE  steps  of  the  letter-carrier,  who  had  just  brought 
the  mail,  rattled  away  briskly  around  the  corner. 
The  blithe  little  man  in  gray,  who,  with  a  bundle  of 
letters  and  newspapers  in  hand,  has  walked  the  dis- 
tance of  five  times  around  the  globe  in  the  last  twenty- 
three  years,  had  set  me  to  thinking.  If  letter-carriers 
ever  die — and  I  have  a  sort  of  hazy  belief  that  they 
gradually  cremate,  themselves,  and  so  vanish  into  thin 
air  as  they  walk — this  cheery  man  of  letters,  whom 
the  street  knows  and  smiles  upon  as  Bob,  will  be  found 
on  the  threshold  of  that  particular  one  of  the  many 
mansions  which  is  devoted  to  the  post-office  depart- 
ment, with  a  package  in  his  hand  and  a  smile  on  his 
face.  Yet  he  has  a  dark  phantom  of  care  that  some- 
times falls  into  step  behind  him  and  dogs  his  feet. 
He  believes  that  had  his  childhood  been  happier  he 
might  have  made  a  success  in  life,  and  success  in  his 
vocabulary — for  Bob  is  not  wiser  than  his  generation 
—means  wealth  and  position.  It  is  too  bad,  though  I 
did  not  tell  him  so.  There  is  no  man  so  poor  and 
powerless  but  that  he  can  give  his  son  or  daughter  a 
happy  childhood.  Then,  however  bitter  the  battle 
may  be  afterwards,  there  will  be  years  of  sunshine  to 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  359 

look  back  upon,  and  no  cloud  can  dim  them,  no  burg- 
lar steal  their  remembrance. 

But  Bob  told  the  story  a  great  deal  more  to  the 
point  than  I  am  doing.  Let  him  speak.  And  bear 
in  mind  that  he  told  it  with  no  attempt  at  sympathy 
and  no  thought  of  sentiment.  It  was  my  boy's  new 
jacket,  of  which  he  had  caught  a  glimpse,  and  which 
he  evidently  admired  on  aesthetic  principles,  because 
it  was  a  change,  which  started  the  stream  of  reminis- 
cence. 

"  A  jacket  was  the  turning-point  in  my  life,"  so  the 
man  of  mails  began.  "  When  I  was  a  boy  of  fourteen 
years  I  wanted  a  velvet  jacket,  such  as  were  then  the 
fashion  with  people  who  were  richer  than  ourselves. 
The  price  was  seven  dollars ;  and  as  I  knew  there  was 
no  use  in  asking  for  it,  I  determined  to  earn  the 
money  and  save  it  up.  It  was  a  tight  pull,  I  can  tell 
you,  but  at  last  I  pulled  through  all  right.  Wasn't  I 
proud  when  I  counted  up  the  seven  dollars !  and  I 
was  happy,  too,  in  anticipation  of  wearing  the  jacket 
the  next  Sunday.  I  went  to  my  father,  put  the  mon- 
ey in  his  hand,  and  told  him  what  I  wanted.  Of 
course,  I  would  not  think  of  getting  it  myself;  boys 
did  not  do  business  in  that  way  when  I  was  young. 
At  night  my  father  came  home  with  a  bundle,  and  I 
ran  to  see  it  opened.  He  pulled  out  a  dark  satinet 
jacket  that  I  was  sure  did  not  cost  half  the  money, 
threw  it  down  before  me,  and,  with  the  remark  that  it 
was  plenty  good  enough  for  me  to  wear,  turned  to  go 
out  of  the  room.  My  heart  and  my  courage  were 
broken,  but  I  managed  to  speak.  '  Father,'  I  said, 
1 1  will  never  save  another  penny  as  long  as  I  live.' 
I  have  kept  my  promise.  It  was  the  turning-point  of 


360  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

my  life,  and  I  think  it  took  all  ambition  out  of  me. 
So  you  see  me  a  letter-carrier  at  fifty — a  mere  machine 
to  plod  the  streets.  It  all  came  of  that  jacket.  I  re- 
member it  as  if  it  were  yesterday."  "  Did  your  father 
give  you  back  the  rest  of  the  money?"  I  asked. 
"Never!"  That  is  all.  It  was  not  much  of  a  trag- 
edy, yet  it  marred  a  life. 

The  garden  is  a  daily  delight  to  me.  The  only 
drawback  is  the  fear  that  some  neighbor  may  chance 
to  criticise  it  in  a  friendly  way  as  small.  Yet,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  contented  African  who  anticipated  criti- 
cism by  saying  in  praise  of  the  turkey  he  had  won  at 
a  raffle,  "  De  breed  am  small,  but  de  flavor  am  deli- 
cious," I  am  prepared  to  take  up  a  similar  line  of  eu- 
logy on  my  garden.  Take  it  as  you  please,  on  either 
the  ornamental  or  the  useful  side.  There  never  were 
such  battlements  of  box  as  hedge  in  the  gravel-walks ; 
no  such  velvet  covers  a  drawing-room  floor  as  that  bit 
of  lawn  that  stretches  down  to  the  little  bluff  above 
the  river ;  those  roses  that  weight  the  bushes  are 
peerless,  and  the  fragrance  of  the  syringa  buds  is  the 
very  refinement  of  orange  blossoms,  and  redolent  with 
every  breath  of  the  youth  and  beauty  that  plucked 
their  ancestral  twigs  in  evenings  of  long  ago.  The 
lilacs  have  had  their  day,  but  wait  until  the  lady's- 
slippers  and  marigolds  and  hollyhocks  take  up  their 
march  in  battalions,  and  the  sweet-peas,  four-o'clocks, 
and  morning-glories  show  their  colors !  On  the  wis- 
tarias thick  green  leaves  have  succeeded  the  purple 
clusters  of  flowers  that  greeted  May,  but  the  leaves 
of  the  honeysuckle-vine  are  not  so  many  as  its  tendril- 
like  blossoms  of  buff  and  pink  and  white,  and  the 
odor  is  at  times  a  revelation  in  the  way  of  teaching 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  361 

humanity  the  right  use  of  the  nose.  For,  at  times,  as 
I  sit  under  the  shadow  of  the  honeysuckle,  the  ca- 
dences of  odor  strike  a  succession  of  keys  in  what  is 
literally  my  organ  of  smell,  and  recall  so  many  forgot- 
ten episodes  that  had  the  fragrance  of  a  spray  of  hon- 
eysuckle or  the  scent  of  a  June  rose  for  their  connect- 
ing link,  that  I  feel  like  having  the  rector  return 
special  thanks  in  the  church  next  Sunday  for  the  gift 
of  noses  to  men. 

On  the  March  day  in  which  I  first  walked  the 
bounds  of  my  territory,  I  noticed,  not  far  from  the 
river-side,  in  a  depression  of  the  ground  that  seemed 
to  have  once  been  the  bed  of  a  brook,  a  bunch  of 
pussy  willows,  which  had  already  put  forth  its  buds. 
Some  of  these  buds  were  silver  gray  and  others  were 
brown  in  color,  but  all  were  soft  and  fleecy  as  the 
skins  of  little  mice.  A  willow-tree  that  stood  near 
by  had  but  cut  its  leaves  on  April  2Oth ;  a  week  later 
the  maples  had  caught  up  with  them,  and  the  next 
week  saw  the  poplars  and  elms  slowly  spreading  out 
their  verdure.  Meantime  the  lilac  bushes  had  forged 
ahead,  and  at  the  finish  were  most  luxuriant  of  all  in 
the  full,  free  spread  of  their  dark  green  foliage.  The 
cherry-trees,  I  noticed,  were  first  of  the  fruits  to  put 
out  their  blossoms,  and  were  in  full  bloom  on  April 
28th.  It  was  ten  days  later  that  the  pink  loveliness 
of  the  peach-tree  dawned,  with  spikes  of  green  leaves 
yet  unfolded  showing  between  the  flowers,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  middle  of  May  that  an  apple-tree,  which 
shades  the  kitchen,  and  which  the  builder  of  the 
house  planted  at  his  wife's  request  to  shade  the  maid 
when  she  churned,  was  in  the  full  bloom  of  its  beau- 
ty— an  animated  milky  way.  Early  in  Easter  week 


362  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

the  dandelion  had  spread  its  modest  oriflamme  to  the 
air,  and  on  Easter  Sunday,  April  2ist,  a  bush  of  gold- 
en-bells gave  notice  that  the  season  of  flowers  had 
fairly  dawned.  Already,  too,  the  red  and  saffron 
shoots  of  peonies  had  thrust  their  heads  well  above- 
ground,  and  thick  bunches  of  hollyhock  leaves  had 
raised  their  protest  against  further  slumber  in  the  life 
of  plants.  On  the  day  that  May  came  in,  the  pink 
profusion  of  the  flowering  almond  had  entered  on  its 
brief  career ;  then  came  the  lilacs,  heavy  with  sweet 
scent ;  the  blossoms  of  the  hawthorn  hedge,  laden 
with  honey;  the  clover,  red  and  white,  and,  before  the 
month  had  closed,  roses,  honeysuckle,  bluebells,  sy- 
ringa,  and  pink  balls  of  peony  bloom  had  blended  a 
marvellous  kaleidoscope  of  colors  in  the  garden. 

Not  being  entirely  confident  of  results,  I  have  laid 
out  my  vegetable  garden  in  the  north-east  corner  of 
my  acre,  where  it  does  not  obtrude  upon  criticism. 
My  farm  in  the  rear  of  the  house  is  divided  in  twain 
by  a  broad,  box-bordered  gravel-walk.  The  southern 
half  is  lawn.  Next  to  the  walk,  in  the  northern  half, 
is  the  flower-garden  —  a  plot  of  some  sixty  feet  by 
thirty — and,  beyond,  a  plot  of  similar  size  is  devoted 
to  vegetables.  It  is  a  miracle  of  thrifty  promise  now. 
The  peas  have  clambered  up  into  the  brush  and  put 
forth  their  milk-white  blossoms;  the  heart-shaped 
leaves  on  the  bean-stalks  have  broadened  out  to  full 
size  ;  the  tomato  plants,  looking  like  young  elms,  have 
learned  to  stand  alone ;  three  rows  of  silky,  shining 
spears  are  rising  to  conceal  the  fence  and  sentinel  the 
patch,  and  at  their  feet  are  the  beginnings  of  squash 
vines. 

The  modern   statesman  declares  that   the   Indian 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


363 


cannot  be  made  a 
farmer,  but  I 
have  an  idea  that 
the  statesman  is 
a  mere  Dogberry 
in  agriculture. 
When  Hendrik 
Hudson  visited 
the  village  of  Sa- 
pohanikan — a  set- 
tlement of  forty 
men  and  seven- 
teen women  who 
cultivated  a  por- 
tion of  what  is 
now  the  Ninth 
Ward — he  found 
a  circular  barn 
built  of  oak  bark 
and  having  an 
arched  roof, 
which  "  contain- 
ed a  great  quan- 
tity of  maize  or  Indian  corn,  and  beans  of  last  year's 
growth ;  and  there  lay  near  the  house,  for  the  purpose 
of  drying,  enough  to  load  three  ships,  besides  what 
was  growing  in  the  fields."  And  that  veracious  histo- 
rian, Van  der  Donck,  speaks  of  "  a  vegetable  pecul- 
iar to  the  natives,  called  by  our  people  quaasiens 
(squashes),  a  name  derived  from  the  aborigines,  as  the 
plant  was  not  known  to  us  before  our  intercourse 
with  them.  It  is  a  delightful  fruit,  as  well  to  the  eye 
for  its  colors  as  to  the  mouth  for  its  agreeable  taste," 


DUTCH    HOUSES 


364  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

Well  might  the  poet,  Evert  Nieuwenhof,  write  of  Man- 
hattan : 

"  Why  mourn  about  Brazil,  full  of  base  Portuguese, 
When  Van  der  Donck  shows  so  much  better  fare  ?" 


That  was  a  mosquito  which  interrupted  me  and 
shortened  the  quotation,  but  I  have  killed  him.  He 
came  across  the  river  from  Long  Island.  Van  der 
Donck  makes  no  mention  of  mosquitoes  as  native  to 
the  Island  of  Manhattan,  and  I  know  that  ours  are 
imported.  I  may  be  proud  enough  of  my  country  to 
cease  to  plead  the  baby  act  and  to  take  my  chances 
as  a  free-trader,  but  I  believe  in  protection  against 
the  ferocious  domestic  dragons  of  Long  Island — the 
carnivorous  winged  monster  which  goes  by  the  harm- 
less name  of  mosquito.  The  infant  gnats  of  New 
York  can  never  compete  with  them. 

I  said  that  I  had  killed  him,  but  I  was  mistaken. 
He  is  back  again,  and  as  numerous  as  FalstafTs  men 
in  buckram.  The  pen  is  feebler  than  his  spear,  and  I 
lay  it  down. 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  365 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   NEW  WORLD    VENICE — PANORAMA    OF    EAST    RIVER    ISLANDS — A 
LOVELY    WATER    JOURNEY— AN    OLD-TIME    SHERIFF   IN  HIS    HOME 

IT  has  always  seemed  a  pity  to  be  compelled  to 
bid  good-bye  to  the  Maelstrom,  Nero's  Fiddle,  the 
Mountains  of  the  Moon,  the  pot  of  gold  that  lies 
buried  at  the  foot  of  the  rainbow,  and  other  delusions 
of  my  youth,  and  to  have  to  exchange  the  poetry  of 
fancy  for  the  prose  of  fact.  It  has  been  a  disappoint- 
ment to  me  not  to  find  Hell  Gate  the  terror  that  the 
early  Dutch  navigator  described  it,  and  yet  I  must 
confess  that  this  loss  is  in  great  measure  made  up  by 
its  ineffaceable  beauty.  The  Rev.  Master  Woolley, 
who  published  a  journal  of  his  visit  to  America  in 
1678,  speaks  of  Hell  Gate  as  being  "as  dangerous  as 
the  Norway  maelstrom,"  and  says :  "  In  this  Hell 
Gate,  which  is  a  narrow  passage,  runneth  a  rapid,  vio- 
lent stream,  both  upon  flood  and  ebb ;  and  in  the 
middle  lieth  some  islands  of  rocks,  upon  which  the 
current  sets  so  violently  that  it  threatens  present 
shipwrack;  and  upon  the  flood  is  a  large  whirlpool, 
which  sends  forth  a  continual,  hideous  roaring."  Into 
this  wild  whirl  of  waters  no  early  navigator  ventured 
to  embark  except  of  necessity,  and  the  superstition 
of  sailors  expressed  itself  in  giving  the  names  of  "  Dev- 
il's Frying  Pan  "  and  "  Devil's  Gridiron  "  to  two  of  its 
reefs.  To-night,  as  we  sit  upon  the  back  porch,  smok- 


366  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

ing  our  pipes  in  enjoyment  that  needs  few  words  for 
its  expression,  I  am  entirely  disposed  to  go  out  of  the 
past  into  the  present.  Seldom  has  a  more  lovely 
picture  been  spread  before  the  eye.  The  waters  are 
silvered  everywhere  by  moonlight,  and  the  ripples  on 
rock  and  reef  are  burnished  to  unearthly  brightness. 
The  city  lies  hidden  by  the  vines  that  overshadow  us. 
Across  the  swift  stream  the  horizon  is  bounded  by 
clustering  trees  that  more  than  half  conceal  the  homes 
on  the  Long  Island. shore,  and  on  the  islands  below 
and  above  us  the  moon  tips  turreted  buildings  that 
have  almost  buried  themselves  in  foliage,  and  that 
lend  the  landscape  an  old-time  appearance.  Across 
the  bosom  of  the  rapid  river  flash  craft  of  every  build, 
from  the  great  steamship  on  her  trip  to  Maine  to  the 
dancing  row-boat  on  pleasure  or  lobstering  intent. 
We  smoke  in  silence,  we  two  who  have  had  our  day 
and  yet  are  younger  in  heart  than  many  who  are  our 
juniors  by  a  score  or  two  of  years  ;  indeed,  the  youth- 
fulness  of  my  comrade  sometimes  appalls  me,  as  to- 
night when  he  proposed  that  we  should  hire  a  launch 
and  explore  the  East  River. 

It  would  be  no  bad  thing  if  every  New  Yorker  who 
has  the  time  to  spare  could  make  a  voyage  of  discov- 
ery between  Governor's  Island  and  Throgg's  Neck. 
To  travel  swiftly  through  on  a  steamboat  would  not 
answer  the  purpose.  A  sail-boat  that  would  skirt  the 
islands  and  penetrate  the  bays,  or  a  naphtha  launch 
which  would  make  its  way  in  spite  of  currents,  is 
what  the  Columbus  of  the  East  River  needs.  That 
part  of  New  York  which  flies  to  Bar  Harbor  or  New- 
port for  scenery  or  the  sea  does  not  know  that  the 
sea  and  its  estuaries,  its  rocks,  and  its  tides,  are  at 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  367 

their  doors.  The  Palisades  and  Highlands  of  the 
Hudson  have  had  their  eulogists  for  half  a  century, 
and  the  Tappan  Zee  and  Catskill  Mountains  have 
been  immortalized  in  romance,  but  poetry  has  yet 
to  discover  the  rare  beauties  of  the  East  River, 
whose  water-front  is  not  surpassed  in  attractiveness 
in  any  country.  Gemmed  with  islands,  garlanded 
with  woods,  beset  by  rocks  which  are  rich  in  legend- 
ary lore,  and  headlands  that  are  redolent  of  history ; 
in  many  spots  as  unchanged  as  in  the  days  when  Har- 
lem was  a  tiny,  sleepy  settlement,  remote  from  the 
busy  City  of  New  Amsterdam  ;  this  arm  of  the  sea  is 
one  of  the  loveliest,  if  least  regarded,  features  of  the 
grandest  of  American  cities. 

When  New  York  was  created  to  be  a  great  mari- 
time city,  care  was  taken  to  supply  it  with  all  that  it 
should  need  in  the  way  of  islands,  and  they  were 
strewn  about  its  main  island  foundation  with  proper 
picturesqueness.  Those  who  remember  the  islands  in 
their  primeval  loveliness,  when  they  were  the  homes 
of  some  of  our  ancient  families,  and  were  clad  in  verd- 
ure in  summer,  and  in  impressive  dreariness  in  win- 
ter, may  regret  that  the  city  has  been  compelled  to 
use  some  of  them  as  homes  for  the  sick  and  the  sin- 
ner, but  even  the  stern  majesty  of  the  law  cannot 
make  them  other  than  beautiful.  It  is  a  matter  of 
congratulation  with  those  who  believe  that  the  useful 
need  not  be  ugly  that  there  are  some  things  which 
the  hands  of  men  who  fancy  that  they  can  always  im- 
prove upon  nature  cannot  mar.  The  islands  in  the 
East  River  will  always  remain  an  enchanting  feature 
in  the  topography  of  this  maritime  metropolis,  and 
New  Yorkers,  who  are  somewhat  prone  to  overlook 


368  MY    SUMMER  ACRE 

advantages  which  lie  directly  at  their  doors,  will  some 
day  open  their  eyes  to  appreciate  them  just  as  the 
old  colonel  and  I  feast  our  eyes  upon  stray  bits  of 
their  loveliness  to-night. 

The  little  island  at  the  mouth  of  the  East  River, 
which  is  owned  by  the  United  States,  but  will  revert 
to  the  city  if  its  bristling  cannon  and  other  parapher- 
nalia of  war  are  abandoned  and  its  flag  is  drawn  down, 
was  historically  and  municipally  connected  with  other 
islands  in  the  river  from  the  early  days  of  the  Dutch 
Governors  of  New  Netherlands.  Its  Indian  name  was 
Pagganck,  or  Nut  Island,  lengthened  by  the  Dutch 
into  Noton,  or  Nutten  Island,  and  from  the  first  set- 
tlement was  made  a  perquisite  of  the  director-general 
for  the  time  being.  Hither  the  small  boy,  who  could 
then  wade  across  from  Red  Hook  or  paddle  himself 
from  New  Amsterdam,  went  to  gather  the  plentiful 
crop  of  chestnuts  until  such  time  as  an  English  Gov- 
ernor erected  a  summer-house  on  one  of  its  knolls. 
The  renowned  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  the  Doubter, 
whose  only  certainty  in  life  was  that  public  office  was 
a  private  trust,  and  who  was  the  official  ancestor  of  a 
long  line  of  land-grabbers,  was  the  original  purchaser 
of  Pagganck  from  Cacapetegno  and  Pewihas,  the  abo- 
riginal owners,  and  while  he  bought  this  realm  of  the 
bluebird  and  bobolink  in  his  capacity  of  director- 
general  of  the  New  Netherlands,  he  proceeded  to  use 
it  as  private  property,  as  he  did  also  Great  Barn  and 
Little  Barn  Islands — the  latter  now  known  as  Ward's 
and  Randall's  islands,  and  stocked  and  cultivated 
them  for  the  benefit  of  his  own  purse.  Their  "  high 
mightinesses,  the  lords  of  the  honorable  West  India 
Company,"  did  not  relish  these  proceedings,  and  sub- 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  369 

sequently  ordered  Governor  Stuyvesant  to  take  steps 
to  secure  "  Nut  Island  and  Hell  Gate "  as  public 
property,  and  this  was  done.  One  of  the  English  suc- 
cessors of  Walter,  the  Doubter,  was  a  man  after  his 
own  heart.  For,  when  the  Colonial  Assembly  placed 
£1000  at  the  disposal  of  Lord  Cornbury  to  fortify  the 
island,  that  luxurious  gentleman  proceeded  to  expend 
the  money  in  erecting  for  himself  a  handsome  coun- 
try residence  there,  and  it  was  not  until  the  war  of 
the  Revolution  broke  out  that  fortifications  were 
erected  there  alternately  by  the  patriot  and  British 
forces.  After  peace  was  declared,  and  Governor  Clin- 
ton, as  executive  of  the  sovereign  and  independent 
State  of  New  York,  came  into  possession  of  the  island, 
he  leased  it  for  the  purposes  of  a  race-course  and  ho- 
tel, and  all  New  York  went  pleasuring  there.  But  when, 
in  the  last  term  of  President  Washington,  dark  clouds 
of  war  threatened  the  young  republic,  the  island  was 
thoroughly  fortified  by  volunteers  from  the  city,  under 
the  inspiring  watchwords  of  "  Free  trade  and  sailors' 
rights,"  and  since  that  time  it  has  ceased  to  exist  as  a 
gubernatorial  perquisite  or  a  haunt  of  sylvan  peace. 

Apparently  there  must  have  been  always  something 
official  about  the  long,  narrow  strip  of  Blackwell's  Isl- 
and in  the  East  River,  for  it  belonged  to  one  of  the 
Dutch  Governors,  and  was  known  as  The  Long  Island 
(the  Indians  called  it  Minnahannonck)  at  the  time 
when  the  island  which  now  passes  by  the  latter  name 
was  known  as  Nassau  Island.  John  Manning,  who 
had  been  captain  of  a  trading  vessel  between  New 
York  and  New  Haven,  and  had  abandoned  business 
for  a  commission  in  the  colonial  forces,  was  appointed 
sheriff  of  New  York  after  its  first  conquest  by  the 


370  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

British,  and  from  the  emoluments  of  the  office  made 
purchase  of  The  Long  Island.  The  bargain  turned 
out  to  be  a  prudent  one  for  him,  and,  moreover,  dur- 
ing his  incumbency  the  Duke  of  York,  stirred  to  the 
very  pocket  by  having  the  city  named  after  his  royal 
worthlessness,  sent  over  a  silver  mace  to  be  carried  at 
the  head  of  the  procession  of  city  magistrates,  silken 
gowns  faced  with  fur  for  the  seven  aldermen,  liveries 
of  blue  and  orange  for  the  beadles  and  constables,  and 
a  crimson  robe,  cocked  hat,  and  sword  for  the  use  of 
the  sheriff.  Nothing  so  magnificent  as  these  civic 
dignitaries  on  parade  had  been  seen  in  the  little  city. 
Even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like 
the  sheriff  or  the  town  constable.  But  this  gorgeous 
state  of  affairs  was  short-lived.  The  Dutch  were  slow 
to  anger,  yet  at  the  end  of  five  years  news  came  that 
a  Dutch  fleet  was  on  its  way  to  the  harbor,  prepared 
and  competent  to  blow  the  English  fort  and  its  de- 
fenders to  atoms.  Governor  Lovelace  went  to  Bos- 
ton to  seek  help  and  Manning  was  left  in  command 
of  the  soldiers,  when  Admiral  Evertsen  poured  a 
broadside  into  the  city,  and  proved  his  ability  to  bring 
down  its  houses  and  fortifications  over  their  ears. 
Manning  surrendered,  and  after  the  city  had  been  re- 
stored to  the  English  by  treaty,  he  was  tried  by  court- 
martial,  and  sentenced  to  have  his  sword  broken  over 
his  own  head  and  to  be  forever  barred  from  holding 
any  public  position.  On  a  chill  November  day  in 
1674  the  former  part  of  the  sentence  was  carried  out 
in  front  of  the  City  Hall — the  old  Stadt  Huys  on  the 
Strand,  at  Coenties  Slip.  Disgraced  as  he  was,  Man- 
ning was  by  no  means  in  despair,  for  his  confidence 
in  himself  was  unbounded,  and  his  pockets  were  full 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  371 

of  money.  With  serene  philosophy  he  retired  to  his 
East  River  island  and  the  luxurious  home  he  had  con- 
structed there,  resolved  to  get  as  much  enjoyment 
out  of  his  physical  life  as  was  possible.  Having  mon- 
ey, he  had  friends,  of  course,  and  besides,  the  fame  of 
his  dinners  went  throughout  the  colony  and  pleaded 
his  cause  through  the  tender  masculine  stomach. 
His  house  became  a  synonyme  of  hospitality ;  his  wit 
was  a  proverb,  and  he  was  pronounced  the  most  ele- 
gant and  agreeable  of  hosts.  If  he  had  been  poor 
and  penitent  he  would  never  have  become  popu- 
lar. u  So  long  as  thou  doest  well  unto  thyself,"  said 
wise  old  King  David,  "  men  will  speak  good  of  thee." 
Even  in  an  earthly  paradise  the  genial  and  unre- 
pentant old  adventurer  could  not  live  forever,  and 
when  he  died  the  island  was  bequeathed  to  his  daugh- 
ter, who  had  married  Robert  Blackwell,  to  whom  it 
owes  the  name  it  has  borne  for  200  years.  The  city 
became  the  purchaser  of  its  120  acres  in  1828,  paying 
for  the  island  what  would  now  be  called  the  modest 
sum  of  $50,000,  which  was  its  full  value  then.  It  is 
a  small  municipality  in  itself,  with  a  population  of 
more  than  ten  thousand  persons.  A  glance  and  a 
thought  suffice  for  Blackwell's,  but  the  scene  that 
breaks  upon  the  eye  beyond,  where  the  river  makes  a 
sudden  bend  and  reveals  its  swift  waters  rushing  be- 
tween promontories  clad  in  living  green  and  crowned 
with  luxuriant  foliage,  where  the  eyes  cannot  decide 
whether  to  most  admire  the  charms  of  the  land  or 
the  wave,  and  only  knows  that  the  beauty  of  one  sets 
off  the  loveliness  of  the  other,  calls  for  the  brush  of 
the  great  American  painter  that  is  to  be.  In  the  full 
glory  of  the  moonlight  it  is  superb. 


372  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

As  the  old  colonel  rose  to  go  home,  we  two  gray- 
beards  started  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  bedside  of  Mas- 
ter Felix  Oldboy,  Jr.  My  little  boy  loves  every- 
thing that  breathes  and  has  legs,  and  after  capturing 
two  tiny  mice  had  laboriously  constructed  a  home 
for  them  for  their  protection  from  Neb.  and  Martha 
Washington,  with  a  bay-window  attachment  in  the 
shape  of  a  revolving-wheel  for  their  use.  The  old 
colonel  had  heard  of  it  and  came  to  me  with  a  mutter 
of  subterranean  thunder:  "Mice,  indeed!  Make  a 
man  of  him  and  get  him  a  gun !"  and  then  trotted  off 
and  secretly  gave  the  boy  a  quarter  to  buy  wire  with. 
We  found  him  in  his  bed,  rosy,  placid,  and  sweet  with 
sleep.  On  a  chair  close  to  his  pillow  was  the  house 
he  had  built  for  his  mice,  and  from  the  wheel  two 
pairs  of  eyes  that  seemed  to  be  brilliant  black  beads 
were  keeping  watch  upon  their  master.  So  he  had 
always  'gone  to  bed  with  his  newest  treasures  before 
his  closing  eyes  or  hugged  to  his  heart.  It  was  a 
pictur^  I  had  never  looked  upon  without  being  aware 
of  the  footsteps  of  approaching  tears.  I  bent  and 
kissed  the  child  in  his  sleep,  and  the  old  colonel  said 
that  the  light  hurt  his  eyes, and, with  a  sudden  "Good- 
night !"  marched  home. 

The  mice  awoke  and  preached  a  sermon  to  me  as 
their  pink  toes  twirled  the  wheel  of  wire.  It  is  just 
so,  I  said,  with  man  and  his  toys  of  the  hour.  If 
sleep  be  the  brother  of  death,  when  we  stretch  our- 
selves out  for  a  long  night's  rest  under  a  coverlet  of 
grasses,  how  pityingly  will  the  dear  Father  look  down 
upon  the  wreckage  of  hopes  and  plans  strewed  around 
our  couch,  glad  in  His  "oving  heart  that  He  can  wake 
us  to  better  things  to-morrow ! 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  373 


CHAPTER   IV 

HAPPINESS  IN  A  CANAL -BOAT — PULPIT  CRITICISMS — THE  STORY  OF 
WARD'S  ISLAND — IN  THE  DAYS  OF  THE  REDCOATS 

MY  pet  theory  of  acreage  and  happiness  has  re- 
ceived unexpected  confirmation  from  a  canal -boat. 
Ready  as  I  am  to  maintain  that  one  acre  is  enough 
for  a  home,  and  that  its  little  circle  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life,  its  dreams  and  its  realities,  will  suffice 
for  a  man's  kingdom,  I  have  been  amazed  to  find  that 
the  horizon  may  be  narrowed  still  further  without  fa- 
tal results.  It  is  the  revelation  of  a  circus  of  tadpoles 
in  a  drop  of  water,  and  it  came  about  as  Master  Felix 
and  I  were  exploring  the  water-front  towards  Dead 
Man's  Rock  and  wondering  under  what  ledge  bold 
Captain  Kidd  may  have  hidden  his  treasures,  and 
whether  the  spook  of  the  buccaneer,  who  was  slain 
with  a  silver  bullet  and  was  said  to  haunt  the  Hen 
and  Chickens,  disappeared  when  that  redoubtable  ar- 
ray of  rocks  was  blown  into  oblivion.  At  a  dilapidated 
wharf  just  below  Horn's  Hook,  still  a  grassy  spot  well 
grown  with  trees,  was  moored  a  weather-beaten  canal- 
boat,  laden  with  coal  and  vociferous  with  animated 
life.  The  venerable  craft  was  the  home  of  a  wedded 
couple  and  their  five  children,  and  the  seven  inhabit- 
ants of  the  very  small  cabin  and  narrow  ledges  of 
deck  seemed  to  be  as  happy  a  family  as  had  come 
under  my  eyes  for  many  a  year.  I  watched  the  glee 


374  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

with  which  the  father  and  his  three  elder  children — 
the  eldest  was  a  girl  of  twelve — fished  a  breakfast  of 
tomcods  and  eels  from  the  waters,  while  the  mother 
was  rocking  the  two  younger  ones  to  sleep  down  in 
the  little  cabin,  and  afterwards  played  softly  to  her- 
self on  an  old  accordion.  They  had  but  $9  a  week 
to  be  happy  on,  yet  somehow  they  seemed  to  man- 
age it,  and  on  Sunday  they  were  bright  and  fresh  in 
clean  attire,  and  even  the  baby  had  new  shoes.  As  I 
looked  out  at  them  from  the  rampart  of  my  summer 
acre  on  the  Sunday  in  which  they  had  been  paraded 
for  inspection,  I  wondered  whether  the  uncouth  cap- 
tain of  the  canal-boat  would  not  by-and-by  sail  up  the 
River  of  Life  in  better  trim  than  many  a  fleet  yacht 
that  he  envies  as  it  sweeps  by.  Perhaps,  however,  it 
is  an  electric  sympathy  between  a  dilapidated  canal- 
boat  and  a  venerable  mansion  which  has  seen  bet- 
ter days — and  what  marvellous  yarns  of  land  and  sea 
they  could  exchange  if  acquainted  and  on  speaking 
terms !  —  which  has  set  me  to  moralizing  in  this 
vein. 

The  mention  of  Sunday  reminds  me  to  put  it  on 
record  that  we  go  to  church  in  the  morning  of  that 
day  to  old  St.  Paul's.  I  like  it  better  than  any  of  the 
modern  Gothic  temples.  People  speak  of  old  Trinity, 
but  it  is  a  child  in  comparison  with  St.  Paul's,  which 
has  fourscore  years  precedence  in  age.  I  have  a 
friend  living  at  the  Astor  House,  the  last  scion  of  his 
family  tree,  who  always  marches  solemnly  out  of 
church  before  the  sermon.  He  says  that  he  can 
stand  the  modern  "  Ja-fiddle-de-de-cob  "  style  of  sing- 
ing, which,  like  all  old-fashioned  admirers  of  Corona- 
tion, Brattle  Street,  and  Mear,  I  abominate,  but  he 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


375 


does  not  think  that 
more  than  one 
preacher  in  a  gen- 
eration is  qualified 
to  go  up  into  the 
pulpit. 

Yet  no  modern 
critic  of  the  Man- 
hattan pulpit  can 
flatter  himself  that 
he  is  original.  In 
1679  two  members 
of  the  mystic  sect, 
known  as  Laba- 
dists  in  Holland, 
made  a  voyage  to 
the  New  Nether- 
lands to  see  what 
could  be  done  in 
the  way  of  securing 
proselytes.  The 
men  were  no  doubt 
sufficiently  relig- 
ious, but  like  many 
other  good  people 
they  have  left  it  on 
record  that  they 
were  cranks  of  the 
first  water.  One 

Sunday  they  attended  the  old  South  Dutch  Church  in 
Garden  Street,  near  Exchange  Place,  where  they  heard 
a  sermon  by  Dominie  Schaats,  from  Fort  Orange,  now 
Albany,  and  they  wrote  a  criticism  that  was  savage 


PULPIT,    ST.   PAtJL's 


376  MY  SUMMER   ACRE 

enough  for  the  most  godless  of  newspapers.  "  He 
had  a  defect  in  the  left  eye,"  said  the  gentle  Labadist, 
"  and  used  such  strange  gestures  and  language  that 
I  never  in  all  my  life  heard  anything  more  misera- 
ble ;  we  could  imagine  nothing  but  that  he  had  been 
drinking  a  little  this  morning."  The  next  Sunday 
these  wandering  evangelists  went  to  hear  the  English 
minister,  whose  services  took  place  after  the  Dutch 
church  was  out,  and  whom  they  scored  unmercifully. 
"A  young  man  went  into  the  pulpit  and  commenced 
preaching,"  the  keeper  of  the  journal  wrote,  "who 
thought  he  was  performing  wonders  ;  but  he  had  a 
little  book  in  his  hand  out  of  which  he  read  his  ser- 
mon—  at  which  we  could  not  be  sufficiently  aston- 
ished." I  have  heard  remarks  very  much  like  the 
foregoing  as  a  modern  congregation  has  dispersed  at 
the  church  door. 

In  the  journal  of  their  voyagings  these  wandering 
evangelists  set  forth  that  the  Haarlem  Creek,  at  its 
juncture  with  the  East  River,  forms  the  two  Barents 
Islands  (Ward's  and  Randall's  islands),  and  that  Great 
and  Little  Hell  Gate  are  renowned  for  their  exceed- 
ing frightfulness.  To  these  designations  succeeded 
the  names  of  Great  and  Little  Barn  islands,  which 
seems  to  have  been  imposed  on  them  at  the  time 
when  Wouter  Van  Twiller  saw  that  the  land  was 
good  and  that  his  flocks  and  herds  could  multiply  at 
leisure  upon  its  luxuriant  soil.  Van  Twiller  was  one 
of  that  class  of  mortals  who  believe  themselves  men 
of  destiny.  As  Governor  of  the  province  he  laid  his 
taxes  right  and  left,  and  claimed  his  prerogatives  in 
all  quarters.  He  paid  no  public  or  private  debts,  and 
when  the  sheriff  ventured  mildly  to  insist  that  his 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


377 


salary,  then  three  years  past  due,  should  be  paid,  he 
had  him  arrested  and  clapped  into  jail.  This  gentle- 
man farmed  the  Barn  Islands,  and  the  province  had 
no  little  difficulty  in  wresting  them  from  his  hands. 

There  is  a  little  island  in  the  East  River,  off  the 
foot  of  Ninty-third  Street,  where  the  boys  who  were 
my  contemporaries  used  to  go  in  swimming  and  find 
delight  in  the  sandy  beach,  which  was  known  in  an- 
cient times  as  Mill  Rock,  and  on  later  maps  was  put 
down  as  Leland  Island,  but  which  the  late  generation 
greeted  joyfully  as  Sandy  Gibson's  Island.  Who  is 
there  of  us  whom  the  great  leveller  has  spared  at 
threescore  who  has  not  enjoyed  a  chowder  at  Sandy 
Gibson's  homely  house  of  refreshment,  and  often  done 
execution  among  the  striped  bass  for  which  those 
waters  used  to  be  famous  ?  Ah !  the  fishing  was  fa- 
mous then.  Bass  of  mammoth  size  and  lobsters  of  in- 


MILL  ROCK 


378  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

credible  weight  yearned  to  be  caught,  and  the  Harlem 
River  flounders  were  a  dainty  for  an  epicure.  The 
glory  of  the  bass  has  departed,  the  flounder  is  almost 
a  hermit,  and  the  lobster  coyly  hides  his  green  back 
from  the  sportsman,  though  by  night  the  lights  of  the 
boats  launched  by  hungry  souls  who  bob  for  eels  are 
seen  rising  and  falling  between  the  Hog's  Back  and 
Nigger  Head. 

Of  all  the  islands  that  lie  scattered  through  the 
East  River,  Ward's  Island  is  by  far  the  most  pictu- 
resque. Forty  years  ago  it  was  a  paradise ;  to-day  it 
is  so  beautiful  as  to  attract  the  praise  of  all  visitors. 
With  its  undulating  surface,  originally  covered  with 
dense  woodlands,  it  was  designed  by  nature  for  a  park, 
and  in  the  growth  of  the  city  it  ought  to  have  been 
reserved  for  that  purpose.  Van  Twiller  knew  what 
he  was  about  when  he  converted  its  two  hundred  and 
forty  acres  into  a  pasturage  for  his  cattle,  and  the 
British  knew  what  they  were  about  when  they  occu- 
pied it  in  September,  1776,  and  made  use  of  it  to  keep 
the  patriots  at  Harlem  in  check.  In  maps  of  the  last 
century  it  was  known  as  Buchanan's  Island,  and  Lord 
Howe's  topographical  engineers  placed  a  house  at  the 
north-east  corner  and  a  still  at  the  south.  It  speaks 
volumes  for  the  careful  delineator  of  the  map  that 
every  still-house  in  or  near  New  York  is  faithfully  put 
down,  and  a  bayonet  dug  up  this  week  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  old  distillery  on  this  island  is  significant  of  the 
tastes  of  the  British  soldier.  At  one  time  5000  Eng- 
lish and  Hessian  troops  were  camped  on  Ward's  Isl- 
and, but  there  is  no  record  that  an  American  soldier 
ever  set  foot  upon  its  soil.  In  the  south-west  corner 
of  the  island,  under  the  shade  of  ten  or  twelve  majes- 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  379 

tic  oaks  still  standing,  there  were  visible  once,  and  not 
many  years  ago,  half  a  dozen  graves.  The  mounds 
were  distinctly  marked,  and  a  bowlder  stood  at  the 
head  of  each.  One  stone  was  of  such  size  and  shape 
as  seemingly  to  designate  superior  rank  on  the  part  of 
the  sleeper.  The  inhabitants  spoke  of  them  as  Ind- 
ian mounds,  but  it  is  more  probable  that  the  stones 
mark  the  graves  of  British  soldiers,  and  that  one  of 
the  number  was  an  officer.  The  Indians  never  trou- 
bled themselves  about  headstones,  and  seldom  sought 
the  shade  of  trees  for  a  grave,  while  instinct  seemed 
to  lead  the  white  soldier  to  place  his  dead  under  the 
protecting  arms  of  the  oak  or  the  elm. 

After  the  War  of  the  Revolution  the  island  was 
divided  up  into  farm  lands,  and  its  uplands  became 
famous  for  their  crop  of  cherries  and  apples.  But 
presently  the  rage  of  speculation  seized  upon  the 
owners  of  the  western  shore,  and  in  1812  a  cotton-mill 
of  solid  stone,  300  feet  in  length. and  three  stories  in 
height,  was  erected  on  the  grounds  now  occupied  by 
the  commissioners  of  emigration,  and  everybody  con- 
nected with  the  enterprise  was  warranted  to  become 
wealthy.  A  wooden  bridge,  wide  enough  to  accom- 
modate a  wagon,  was  thrown  across  the  East  River 
between  One  Hundred  and  Fourteenth  Street  and 
the  north-western  end  of  Ward's  Island,  on  stone  abut- 
ments, and  a  new  era  of  prosperity  was  expected  to 
begin  for  the  old  pasture  grounds  of  Walter  the 
Doubter.  It  was  only  a  dream.  The  War  of  1812 
came  with  its  terrible  embargo ;  the  mill  could  not 
get  cotton  from  the  South,  and  the  enterprise  failed. 
When  the  Emigration  Board  entered  on  its  mission, 
forty  years  ago,  it  found  use  for  the  old  mill,  now  de- 


380  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

stroyed,  but  the  bridge  long  before  had  gone  to  decay. 
Its  stone  abutments  were  removed  after  the  steamer 
King  Philip  had  been  wrecked  upon  them.  Our  grand- 
fathers were  a  queer  people.  They  did  not  make 
much  of  a  fuss  about  bridging  the  East  River,  and 
left  posterity  to  imagine  that  it  had  been  the  first  to 
accomplish  the  feat. 

As  I  first  remember  Ward's  Island  it  was  clad  with 
forests.  Local  historians  speak  of  it  as  circular  in 
shape,  but  it  is  really  a  rough  square.  Less  than  forty 
years  ago  it  had  great  wood-clad  bluffs  on  its  eastern 
and  western  sides,  and  its  dense  woodlands  were  the 
haunt  of  rabbit  and  quail.  The  island  is  a  picture  to- 
night as  I  watch  it  from  my  eyrie  below  Horn's  Hook. 
Amid  its  elms  and  wild-cherry-trees  rise  the  minarets 
and  towers  of  public  buildings,  and  it  were  not  diffi- 
cult to  fancy  it  a  ducal  preserve.  In  its  atmosphere 
are  the  more  or  less  fragrant  memories  of  many  dy- 
nasties of  the  past,  and  pleasant  recollections  of  picnics 
and  parties  of  pleasure  on  the  bluff  that  commanded 
the  East  River  passage,  and  that  have  long  since  min- 
gled with  the  common  dust. 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  381 


CHAPTER   V 

MANHATTAN  BIRDS  AND  FISHES  —  FEATHERED  DENIZENS  OF  HELL 
GATE — PRIMEVAL  HAUNTS  ON  THE  CITY'S  ISLANDS — A  MATTER  OF 
PISCATORIAIy  CONSCIENCE 

IT  has  been  an  unending  amusement  to  watch  the 
birds  this  summer.  If  I  had  been  able  to  keep  ac- 
count of  their  number  and  variety,  the  catalogue 
would  have  surprised  the  unnoticing  citizen  who  takes 
it  for  granted  that  the  Island  of  Manhattan  produces 
nothing  but  an  interminable  chorus  of  chattering 
sparrows.  In  the  early  spring  the  gulls  were  busy 
fishing  in  the  waters  of  Hell  Gate,  and  those  brief 
strips  of  white  cloud  circling  above  the  waves  seemed 
at  times  to  keep  the  whole  air  in  motion.  At  the 
same  time  the  crows  were  holding  town  meetings  in 
the  woods  on  Ward's  and  Randall's  islands,  finding 
their  supper  and  breakfast  on  the  marshes  and  sunken 
meadows,  and  in  the  forenoon  flying  in  a  great  black 
cloud  across  the  uplands  of  Astoria,  to  spend  the  day 
and  take  dinner  somewhere  on  the  shores  of  Long 
Island.  When  the  gulls  had  disappeared,  the  blue- 
bird, whom  Thoreau  paints  with  a  touch  as  having  "  a 
bit  of  sky  on  its  back,"  appeared  one  day  on  a  syringa 
bush  in  the  garden,  and  the  same  week  I  heard  the 
piping  of  a  robin  in  the  big  cherry-tree.  Then  I  lost 
the  record  of  the  procession.  In  my  journeyings  up 
and  down  the  river  I  have  seen  the  sleek  maltese  coat 


3§2  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

of  the  cat-bird,  and  frequently  caught  his  song ;  have 
heard  the  bobolink  and  thrush  tune  their  throats  for 
a  dash  of  melody,  and  kept  still  and  watched  until  I 
could  see  the  little  chorister  swaying  on  a  bending 
mullein-stalk  or  a  spear vof  sumach;  have  listened  to 
the  blackbird's  liquid  notes  as  he  darted  through  the 
golden  haze  of  sunset  and  flashed  back  to  my  eye  the 
splash  of  crimson  that  lights  up  his  sable  wing,  and 
once  in  a  while  I  have  detected  the  black  and  orange 
bearings  of  the  oriole,  the  brilliant  uniform  of  a  scar- 
let tanager,  or  the  blue  and  white  of  the  swift-darting 
kingfisher.  In  these  late  August  evenings,  as  the  sun 
sinks  down  to  rest,  I  like  to  sit  and  watch  the  west- 
ward flight  across  the  Gate  of  myriads  of  swallows. 
They  skim  across  the  waters  by  twos,  by  tens,  by 
hundreds,  dipping  with  a  swift,  seemingly  uncertain 
flight,  yet  moving  in  a  concert  of  regularity  which  is 
a  marvel  to  the  dull  wits  of  man.  The  other  evening, 
as  I  was  returning  from  my  rounds  and  passed  a  bit 
of  open  land  by  the  river,  I  saw  that  the  electric  wires 
which  traversed  it  were  occupied  by  legions  of  swal- 
lows, as  closely  clustered  together  as  soldiers  on  pa- 
rade, and  as  attentive,  apparently,  to  the  orders  of  a 
busy  score  of  leaders.  Presently  the  cries  of  the  lead- 
ers ceased  for  a  second,  and  the  army  took  to  the 
wing  in  battalions  and  brigades,  and  went  through  a 
series  of  manoeuvres  that  may  have  been  intended,  so 
far  as  I  know,  as  a  drill  for  the  awkward  squad  of 
youngsters  who  were  to  take  part  for  the  first  time 
in  the  annual  autumn  movements  of  the  New  York 
brigade  of  swallows.  Every  night  there  is  the  same 
flight  across  the  waters  and  over  the  islands,  probably 
to  an  eyrie  in  the  Palisades  of  the  Hudson,  and  every 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  383 

night  the  same  evolutions,  as  necessary  to  swallows, 
no  doubt,  as  to  the  geese  whose  migrations  in  serried 
phalanx  I  used  to  admire  last  spring,  attracted  by  the 
shrill  cry  of  the  leader,  who  rang  his  defiant  trumpet 
high  up  in  air,  as  if  in  recognition  of  the  Manhattan 
he  knew  in  his  childhood  and  was  compelled  to  pass 
by  without  pause  in  his  age,  and  whom  we  shall  see 
again  presently  on  the  return  march  from  northern 
conquests. 

Of  great  fish-hawks  I  have  seen  half  a  dozen  in  these 
waters,  and  once,  I  am  sure,  it  was  an  eagle  that 
soared  above  the  troubled  tide  to  which  he  had  long 
been  a  stranger.  I  could  only  wish  him  a  safe  and 
prosperous  voyage,  and  immunity  from  the  hands  of 
those  who  are  pleased  to  style  themselves  sportsmen. 
It  was  only  yesterday  that  my  breakfast  was  spoiled 
by  reading  a  paragraph  which  stated  that  a  rich  man, 
who  had  once. been  to  Congress,  and  aspired  to  be  a 
politician,  had  shot  an  eagle,  and  intended  to  have 
him  stuffed  and  presented  to  the  Thingamy  Associa- 
tion. Shot  an  eagle,  indeed !  Why,  after  that  eagle 
had  lived  for  a  century  or  two,  and  died  of  old  age,  he 
ought  to  have  had  a  public  funeral,  and  half  a  dozen 
aldermen  for  pall-bearers.  Shot  an  eagle,  indeed  ! 

I  have  been  making  an  antiquarian  tour  of  Ward's 
Island  in  company  with  Master  Felix,  and  as  I  cared 
nothing  for  hospitals,  asylums,  and  other  such  crea- 
tions of  the  hand  of  improvement,  I  naturally  inquired 
for  the  oldest  inhabitant.  He  is  an  individual  for 
whom  I  have  always  and  everywhere  a  profound  re- 
spect. His  garrulity  may  become  a  bore  sometimes^ 
and  I  may  not  feel  bound  to  believe  half  of  what  he 
tells  me,  but  my  own  years  are  increasing,  and  there 


384  MY   SUMMER    ACRE 

is  a  possibility  that  at  no  remote  period  I  may  be 
called  to  step  into  his  shoes.  When  I  asked  who  was 
the  oldest  inhabitant  of  Ward's  Island,  the  answer 
was,  "  Captain  Bill,"  but  it  was  less  easy  to  discover 
that  his  last  name  was  Millner.  I  found  him  a  man 
of  ruddy  complexion,  smiling  eyes,  and  ready  speech, 
but,  to  my  surprise,  only  thirty  years  of  age.  His  fa- 
ther, "  old  Captain  Bill,"  had  run  the  first  ferry  to  the 
island,  half  a  century  ago,  and  his  son,  who  was  born 
in  the  old  cotton-mill,  had  succeeded  to  his  father's 
business,  and  had  learned  from  him  the  legends  of  the 
island  and  its  inhabitants — the  people  who  gave  up 
their  homes  and  disappeared  when  State  and  city  took 
their  lands  for  public  purposes.  Only  two  or  three 
houses  remain  of  those  that  were  standing  fifty  years 
since,  and  these  are  so  dilapidated  that  they  must  soon 
follow  in  the  steps  of  their  builders.  Projected  im- 
provements will  wipe  out  the  wild  features  of  the 
landscape  that  yet  remain,  and  there  will  be  nothing 
for  the  antiquary  to  seize  upon  for  a  text  here  after 
the  next  century  shall  have  begun  its  round. 

"  Yes,  I've  seen  lots  of  changes  since  I  was  a  boy," 
said  Captain  Bill,  as  he  came  up  from  the  State  barge 
which  he  commands,  and  stood  at  the  head  of  the 
emigration  dock,  under  corpulent  willows  that  were 
set  out  forty  years  ago,  and  are  already  giving  signs 
of  decay.  "  I  remember  when  a  bluff  fifty  feet  high 
rose  at  the  end  of  the  island,  down  there  opposite 
Mill  Rock,  and  this  side  of  it  stood  the  Gibson  home- 
stead. Both  have  gone,  but  you  can  see  the  cellar 
walls  of  the  old  house  under  the  trees  there,  and  so 
there  have  been  changes  all  along  the  river-side,  and 
if  the  old  people  were  to  come  back  they  would  not 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


385 


know  the  place."  He  could  not  spare  the  time  to 
guide  me,  but  directed  me  where  to  go  in  the  search 
for  antiquities,  and  left  us  to  ramble  at  our  leisure — 
the  boy  and  I  on  the  site  of  a  buried  Troy.  Yet  it 
was  not  a  buried  city  we  desired  to  find — least  of  all, 
such  as  lay  at  our  feet.  For,  half  a  century  ago,  the 
City  of  New  York  purchased  seventy  acres  here — fair- 
er and  more  picturesque  than  Greenwood — for  a  pot- 
ter's field.  Its  last  place  of  pauper  interment  had 
been  on  the  site  of  the  reservoir  at  Fifth  Avenue  and 


RESERVOIR 


Forty-second  Street,  and  of  Bryant  Square,  a  site  des- 
tined to  become  as  aristocratic  and  exclusive  for  the 
living  as  had  been  the  earlier  potter's  fields  at  Madi- 
son and  Washington  squares.  The  records  say  that 
100,000  bodies  were  removed  to  this  island,  and  as 
many  more  were  brought  here  afterwards,  and  still 
rest  in  their  unmarked  graves,  giving  signs  of  their 
presence  only  now  and  again  when  the  spade  and 
pickaxe  are  busy  ampng  them.  They  have  a  pleasant 
resting-place,  and,  on  the  whole,  they  sleep  well.  A 
25 


386  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

millionaire  could  not  find  a  more  picturesque  outlook 
than  this  slope  that  fronts  on  Hell  Gate,  if  the  trum- 
pet woke  him  to-morrow  to  do  his  final  sum  in  arith- 
metic in  figuring  up  the  profit  and  loss  of  a  lifetime. 

Our  pilgrimage  began  at  the  south  of  the  island, 
on  a  slope  rising  twenty  feet  above  the  swift  tide,  un- 
der a  group  of  wild-cherry-trees,  maple,  and  ailantus, 
amid  an  ancient  garden  overgrown  with  blackberry 
vines,  and  studded  with  juniper  bushes,  marked  and 
guarded  by  an  old  apple-tree,  near  the  ruined  founda- 
tions of  a  house.  It  had  been  a  handsome  summer 
residence  eighty  years  before,  and  when  the  great, 
bare  slope  to  the  eastward  became  the  city's  potter's 
field,  this  was  the  house  of  the  keeper.  Its  ruins  have 
forgotten  the  names  of  its  former  occupants.  Ic  does 
not  take  long  in  a  city's  lifetime  to  be  forgotten.  Not 
a  hundred  yards  away  a  ploughshare  turned  up  a  huge 
slab  of  slate  one  morning  in  spring  some  eighteen 
years  ago.  The  hind  who  held  the  plough  was  aston- 
ished to  see  a  cavern  yawning  at  his  feet  under  the 
broken  slab.  He  called  his  fellows,  and  they  began 
to  investigate.  There  was  a  flight  of  stone  steps  be- 
neath, and  an  arch  of  brick  above  them.  Slowly,  and 
in  doubt  and  fear,  they  descended.  It  was  a  burial- 
vault,  carefully  built  to  hold  ashes  that  were  to  be 
tenderly  kept.  Within  were  fragments  of  broken 
wood,  a  few  bones,  a  rusty  coffin  -plate  or  two,  the 
mute  memorials  of  those  who  had  lived  happily  in 
the  sunshine  above.  But  the  lettering  on  the  plates 
was  indecipherable,  and  no  one  has  been  able  to  tell 
the  name  and  story  of  those  they  were  intended  to 
keep  in  remembrance. 

Beyond  the  slope  to  the  east  lies  a  swamp,  now 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  387 

partly  filled  in,  from  which  the  last  of  half  a  dozen 
great  cedars  had  just  been  cut.  In  the  middle  of  this 
dreary  stretch  of  forty  acres  is  a  swamp  filled  with 
reeds  and  cat-tails  —  the  home  of  a  vast  colony  of 
blackbirds.  A  quarter  of  a  century  since,  this  tract 
was  known  as  "  The  Cedars,"  was  covered  with  ever- 
greens and  brambles,  and  in  its  by-ways  the  pedestrian 
could  easily  lose  himself.  It  was  the  home  of  rabbits 
and  quail,  and  the  local  sportsmen  here  found  game 
to  their  heart's  desire  in  November  days.  It  seems 
incredible  as  I  look  out  on  the  swampy  waste,  but  it 
will  seem  still  more  like  a  distant  tradition  when  the 
tract  is  covered  with  stately  buildings,  as  another  gen- 
eration will  see  it.  At  the  foot  of  this  part  of  the 
island  the  river  current  rages  and  swells  over  the  reef 
known  as  Hog's  Back,  and  around  the  dangerous 
promontory  of  bowlders  called  Nigger's  Head. 

We  took  no  interest  in  the  city  buildings  and  pub- 
lic institutions,  but  going  by  the  banks  of  the  East 
River,  and  past  its  rocky  ramparts  that  repeat  on  a 
miniature  scale  the  wildness  of  the  New  England 
shore,  we  came  to  an  old  house  by  the  shore  that 
faces  Astoria,  and  is  occupied  by  employes  of  the 
city.  It  was  the  home  of  the  Halliker  family,  and  a 
generation  ago  was  kept  as  a  public-house  by  the  head 
of  the  family,  who  was  known  then  to  the  world  of 
fishermen  as  "  Uncle  John."  In  that  day  the  East 
River  at  his  door  was  famous  for  its  striped  bass. 
That  huge,  shy,  beautiful,  game  fish,  born  and  reared 
where  the  water  is  wildest,  seeking  his  food  in  sunken 
meadows,  and  taking  his  ease  on  the  bottoms  of  rocky 
channels,  where  the  current  races  like  a  young  giant, 
found  in  the  guests  of  "  Uncle  John  "  the  foemen  he 


388  MY    SUMMER   ACRE 

delighted  to  meet  and  fight.  Gamest  of  fish  in  the 
water,  and  most  delicious  of  all  fish  on  the  table,  Lit- 
tle and  Great  Hell  Gate  bred  him  to  perfection,  and 
the  stones  that  veteran  fishermen  tell  of  monsters 
that  were  drawn  out  and  tipped  the  scales  at  forty 
pounds  would  excite  the  derision  of  all  who  do  not 
know  that  the  oil-works  at  Hunter's  Point,  and  the 
presence  of  countless  fleets  on  the  waters,  have  driven 
him  almost  out  of  existence.  Fishermen  still  seek 
and  find  him  here,  and  they  tell  me  of  fish  weighing 
ten  to  fifteen  pounds  being  caught  this  season,  and 
that  one  of  twice  the  latter  weight  was  caught  in  Hell 
Gate  last  year.  I  can  only  say  that  I  wish  I  had 
been  the  one  to  catch  him. 

Beyond  the  Halliker  house  the  massive  stone  foun- 
dations of  another  and  larger  house  can  be  traced, 
and  a  stone  wharf,  overgrown  with  grass  and  shaded 
by  willows,  stretches  out  in  front  of  it  and  is  slowly 
falling  to  ruin.  This  was  the  locality  of  the  old  Red 
House,  built  long  before  the  Revolution,  and  inhabited 
by  the  Lynes  family.  Beyond  .it,  all  the  way  to  Lit- 
tle Hell  Gate,  and  back  to  the  Harlem  River,  used  to 
stretch  great  orchards  of  apple,  pear,  and  cherry  trees. 
Most  of  the  land  is  a  waste  meadow  now,  overgrown 
with  wild  strawberries  and  daisies  in  summer,  and  we 
find  it  just  blossoming  out  in  the  rare  brightness  of 
thirty  acres  of  golden -rod.  But,  passing  this  waste 
tract,  we  came  to  a  place  that  was  a  delight  to  our 
hearts  and  a  perplexity  to  our  feet.  It  was  thirty 
acres  of  alders,  wild-cherries,  and  elms,  ending  to  the 
west  in  a  huge  grove  of  wild-cherry-trees  that  seemed 
to  have  been  set  out  by  the  hands  of  Druids  in  sym- 
metrical rings  around  bowlders  of  trap  and  little  pools 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  389 

of  water.  Moss-grown  and  gnarled,  those  venerable 
trees  could  have  told  stories  if  they  would — but  they 
were  impenetrably  silent. 

Master  Felix  and  I  entered  the  little  wood  boldly,, 
and  found  ourselves  in  the  land  of  enchantment.  The 
city  was  a  thousand  miles  away;  civilization  had  been 
left  far  out  of  sight.  Under  the  alders  we  tramped, 
up  to  our  knees  in  strange  grasses  and  forest  flowers, 
finding  here  a  hedge  of  blackberry-vines  laden  with 
fruit,  and  there  a  little  stream  whose  banks  were 
hedged  with  elders  and  reeds ;  seeing  all  about  us 
beautiful  bunches  of  ferns,  and  hearing  everywhere 
above  us  the  flitting  of  cat-birds,  thrushes,  and  yellow- 
hammers.  It  was  the  little  lad  who  suggested  that 
we  were  Stanley's  party,  bound  on  exploration  in  the 
heart  of  Africa,  and  we  could  almost  believe  it,  even 
with  our  eyes  open.  And  when  we  emerged  and  tore 
our  way  to  the  water-side,  through  acres  of  bramble, 
it  was  still  wild  and  uncanny  to  come  upon  the  rush- 
ing tide  careering  over  black  rocks  and  sending  up 
dashes  of  spray  that  recalled  the  sport  of  ocean.  It 
is  a  pleasure  to  have  seen,  amid  the  woodlands  of 
Ward's  Island,  and  along  its  rocky,  surf-swept  shores, 
a  last  glimpse  of  primeval  Manhattan. 


390  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  BATTLE  STORY  OF  THE  EAST  RIVER  —  MONUMENTS  OF  REVOLU- 
TIONARY DAYS — A  DEFEAT  AT  RANDALL'S  ISLAND — THE  PATRIOT- 
ISM THAT  CLUSTERED  ABOUT  HELL  GATE— CATCHING  A  SNOOK 

PERHAPS  it  may  be  a  weak  ambition,  but  I  should 
like  to  catch  a  snook  before  the  season  closes.  I  have 
not  the  least  idea  what  sort  of  a  fish  the  snook  is,  but 
the  historian  Van  der  Donck  says  that  the  waters  of 
the  East  River  abound  in  "  snook,  forrels,  palings, 
dunns,  and  scrolls,"  and  I  have  fixed  upon  the  most 
picturesque  of  the  names,  but  have  in  vain  questioned 
the  lobster  fishermen  about  his  identity.  The  hon- 
est toilers  of  the  wave  look  upon  me,  I  find,  with  an 
eye  of  suspicion,  not  alone  because  of  the  unattain- 
able snook,  but  because  I  repeated  to  them  Van  der 
Donck's  story  about  catching  lobsters  in  these  waters 
that  were  from  five  to  six  feet  in  length.  They  smile, 
shake  their  heads  with  an  air  of  gentle  incredulity,  and 
say  nothing. 

To  whom  are  we  to  pin  our  faith,  however,  if  not  to 
the  historian  ?  Here  is  Peter  Kalm,  writing  about 
New  York  a  century  after  Van  der  Donck  had  gone 
to  reap  the  reward  of  his  veracity,  who  tells  us  that 
originally  the  honest  Dutch  fishermen  sought  for  lob- 
sters in  vain,  and  they  were  brought  in  great  well- 
boats  from  New  England.  "  But,"  he  explains,  "  it 
happened  that  one  of  these  boats  broke  in  pieces  near 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  39! 

Hell  Gate,  about  ten  English  miles  from  New  York, 
and  all  the  lobsters  in  it  got  off.  Since  that  time  they 
have  so  multiplied  that  they  are  now  caught  in  the 
greatest  abundance."  It  is  mournful  to  think  that  the 
New  Yorker  of  1748  could  play  tricks  upon  travel- 
lers, but  I  am  afraid  that  Mr.  Kalm  had  fallen  into 
the  company  of  some  amateur  fishermen  of  that  day. 
Yet  it  is  delicious  to  read  these  musty  volumes  of 
travel,  and  to  look  through  their  eyes  upon  the  Island 
of  Manhattan  and  its  surroundings.  When,  in  the 
quiet  of  yesterday's  sunset,  Nellie  said  that  she  could 
fancy  she  heard  the  croaking  of  the  frogs  in  the 
marshes  beyond  Horn's  Hook,  I  took  down  the  jour- 
nal of  Peter  Kalm  and  pointed  out  a  paragraph  which 
followed  his  description  of  the  trees  that  gave  "  an 
agreeable  shade "  to  the  streets  of  the  little  city. 
"  Besides  numbers  of  birds  which  make  these  their 
abode,"  he  writes,  "  there  are  likewise  a  kind  of  frogs 
which  frequent  them  in  great  numbers  in  summer. 
They  are  very  clamorous  in  the  evening,  and  in  a 
manner  drown  the  singing  of  the  birds.  They  fre- 
quently make  such  a  noise  that  it  is  difficult  for  a  per- 
son to  make  himself  heard."  Poor  man,  the  mosqui- 
toes, which  he  always  found  troublesome,  "did  so 
disfigure  "  him  at  one  time  that  he  could  not  appear 
in  public,  and  this  may  account  for  his  prejudices  on 
the  subject  of  tree-toads  and  lobsters. 

We  are  always  finding  something  new  in  or  about 
our  ancient  homestead,  and  this  time  we  have  made 
an  important  discovery.  It  was  the  old  colonel  who 
set  it  on  foot.  We  had  been  speaking  of  the  islands 
that  day  to  the  north  and  east  of  us  ;  of  how  little  the 
busy  New  Yorker  recked  of  the  orchards  and  meadow 


392  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

lands,  the  stately  willows  and  towering  elms  of  Ran- 
dall's Island,  and  how  general  was  the  ignorance  of  its 
history ;  wondering  whence  North  and  South  Brother 
islands  got  their  names,  and  talking  over  the  days 
when  Aunty  Ackerson  had  her  farm-house  where  the 
pest-houses  of  the  city  now  stand,  and  raised  her 
chickens  under  the  shadow  of  Uncle  Sam's  light-house. 
As  we  paced  up  and  down  the  path  of  the  little  bluff 
at  the  river's  side  in  which  the  lawn  ends,  the  old 
colonel  stopped,  pointed  to  an  inequality  in  the 
ground,  and  said,  "  What's  that  ?"  I  told  him  that  it 
was  probably  a  part  of  an  old  terrace.  "  Terrace !" 
he  shouted ;  "  and  you  are  your  grandfather's  ghost, 
I  presume.  It's  part  of  an  earthwork,  Felix."  Mind- 
ful of  the  experience  of  the  Pickwick  Club  in  the  case 
of  "  Bill  Stumps,  his  Mark,"  I  begged  the  colonel  not 
to  fire  off  the  town  pump.  For  be  it  known  that  at 
the  announcement  of  peace  in  1812,  the  good  people 
of  Hebron,  in  the  land  of  steady  habits,  resolved  to 
fire  a  salute,  and  to  this  end  pulled  up  the  town  pump, 
had  it  banded  with  iron  by  the  village  blacksmith, 
loaded  it  up,  and  touched  it  off.  The  fragments  of 
that  unique  piece  of  artillery  were  found  in  the  next 
township,  and  its  fate  has  been  used  as  a  warning 
against  vaulting  ambition  ever  since.  But  the  old 
colonel  persisted,  and  we  went  to  work  and  caught 
our  "  snook."  We  had  been  on  both  sides  of  earth- 
works in  piping  times  of  war,  and  could  not  be  mis- 
taken in  our  conclusions.  Besides,  the  record  bears 
us  out  and  shows  that  this  acre  was  fighting  ground  in 
the  days  when  redcoats  were  emblems  of  oppression. 

Though  the  East  River  has  been  the  scene  of  but 
little  fighting,  it  has  yet  witnessed  vast  military  prep- 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  393 

arations  ;  and  in  the  withdrawal  of  Washington's  army 
in  the  face  of  Howe's  victorious  legions,  on  the  night 
of  August  30,  1776,  it  saw  one  of  those  master  move- 
ments which  command  the  admiration  of  all  military 
men.  I  sit  on  the  back  porch,  and  looking  out  upon 
the  swift  and  turbulent  waters,  I  try  to  recall  the 
scenes  of  those  days  of  yore,  when  a  fleet  of  English 
ships  rode  up  and  down  the  river ;  when  Howe  sent 
troops  in  boats  from  Hallett's  Point  to  occupy  Bu- 
chanan's and  Montressor's  islands  (as  they  were  then 
called),  and  the  scanty  American  garrisons  evacuated 
the  works  along  the  front ;  when  Sir  Henry  Clinton, 
with  4000  men,  crossed  the  river  in  flat -bottomed 
boats  from  the  mouth  of  Newtown  Creek  and  landed 
at  Kip's  Bay  under  cover  of  a  rattling  cannonade 
from  ten  ships  of  war ; 
when  a  fleet  of  thirty-seven 
war  vessels  and  400  trans- 
ports threatened  annihila- 
tion to  the  meagre  little 
army  with  which  Wash- 
ington was  retreating; 
when  men  were  so  plenti- 
ful and  cheap  in  their  ca- 

KIP'S    HOUSE 

pacity  as  food  for  powder 

that  soldiers  from  Hesse  were  hired  at  the  rate  of 
$34.50  for  every  one  killed,  with  the  understanding 
that  three  wounded  men  were  to  count  as  one  dead 
hireling,  in  the  settlement  of  accounts;  when  these  fat- 
witted  Hessians  garrisoned  this  very  water-front  and 
the  redoubt  that  began  in  my  garden  and  reached  out 
to  the  north  and  west ;  when,  after  long  years  of  occu- 
pation, the  British  flag  was  at  length  hauled  down  from 


394  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

every  bastion  and  rampart  on  the  Island  of  Manhat- 
tan, and  peace  came  to  deck  these  earthworks  with 
the  dandelion  and  the  daisy. 

Before  the  battle  on  Long  Island,  the  American 
forces  had  fortified  the  most  important  points  on  the 
East  River.  A  redoubt  was  cast  up  at  Turtle  Bay, 
between  Forty -fourth  and  Forty -sixth  streets;  a 
breastwork  at  the  shot -tower,  foot  of  Fifty -fourth 
Street ;  a  battery  on  the  bold  bluff  at  Seventy-fourth 
Street ;  another  at  the  foot  of  Eighty-fifth  Street ;  and 
a  strong  work,  known  as  Thompson's  battery,  upon  the 
jutting  promontory  at  the  foot  of  Eighty-ninth  Street, 
then  called  by  the  name  of  Horn's  Hook,  and  after- 
wards Gracie's  Point.  This  fortification  commanded 
the  mouth  of  Harlem  River  and  the  narrow  channel 
at  Hell  Gate.  A  small  work  was  also  erected  on 
Snake  Hill,  now  Mount  Morris,  in  the  park  of  that 
name.  These  were  the  fortifications  mapped  out  by 
the  engineers  ;  but  besides  these  there  were  earthworks 
erected  to  command  every  place  at  which  a  landing 
could  be  effected  and  intended  as  a  protection  for 
light  field-pieces.  The  whole  river-front  bristled  with 
the  preparations  for  war,  and  in  my  boyhood  the 
traces  of  the  works  were  plainly  visible  at  Turtle  Bay, 
at  Horn's  Hook — then  a  beautifully  shaded,  grassy  dell, 
and  still  retaining  many  of  its  old  characteristics — and 
on  the  rocky  and  well-wooded  bluffs  that  lay  between. 
When  the  British  took  possession  of  the  island,  by  a 
simultaneous  descent  on  Turtle  Bay  and  Horn's  Hook, 
they  found  that  the  works  which  the  Americans  had 
erected  were  excellently  adapted  to  their  own  defence, 
and  they  occupied  and  strengthened  them.  They  had 
found  out  their  value  by  experiment ;  for  on  the  night 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


395 


after  the  battle  of  Long  Island  a  forty-gun  ship  that 
had  passed  the  lower  batteries  and  sought  anchorage 


PLAN 

or 
NEW  YORK  ISLAND 

AND  PART   OF 

LONG    ISLAND 

SHOWING  THE   POSITION   OFTHE 

AMERICAN  &.  BRITISH 
ARMIES 

AUGUST  27th. 

1776 

s 


in  Turtle  Bay 
had  been  hull- 
ed by  round- 
shot  from  a  field  battery  upon  the  high  bank  at  Forty- 
sixth  Street,  and  had  been  compelled  to  seek  shelter  in 
the  channel  east  of  Blackwell's  Island. 

As  a  boy  I  can  vividly  recall  the  picturesqueness  of 
the  small  rock- bound  cove  of  the  East  River  known 
as  Turtle  Bay.  The  banks,  which  were  high  and  pre- 
cipitous, afforded  a  safe  and  snug  harbor  for  small 
vessels.  Here,  in  the  year  before  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  signed,  the  British  authorities  had 
made  a  magazine  of  military  stores,  and  these  the 


396 


MY    SUMMER   ACRE 


Sons  of  Liberty,  whose  names  are  on  New  York's 
roll  of  patriotic  honor,  determined  to  seize.  They 
knew  the  ground  well,  and  laid  their  plans  so  as  to  in- 
sure success.  Under  the  direction  of  John  Lamb  and 
Marinus  Willett,  a  chosen  band  of  twenty  secured  a 
sloop  at  a  Connecticut  village  on  the  Sound,  swept 
down  stealthily  through  the  perilous  channels  of  Hell 
Gate  in  the  twilight,  and  at  midnight  surprised  and 
captured  the  guard  at  Turtle  Bay  and  secured  the 
stores.  The  old  storehouse  in  which  these  valuable 
munitions  of  war  were  deposited  was  yet  standing, 
in  my  boyhood,  upon  a  grass -grown  wharf  on  the 
southern  side  of  the  little  bay.  It  is  gone  now,  and 
the  view  from  the  rocky  heights  is  changed,  but  the 
memory  of  brave  men  in  the  days  wherein  patriotism 
was  cradled  lingers  there  yet. 

This  region  saw  other  troublous  times  later  on.     In 

the  summer  and  au- 
tumn of  1814,  New 
York  was  thrown 
into  a  wild  fever  of 
excitement    over   a 
•rumor  that  the  Isl- 
and  of    Manhattan 
was  to  be   invaded 
by  a  British  army. 
The  defences  were 
few  and  insufficient. 
De  Witt  Clinton,  the 
mayor,  issued  a  stir- 
ring address  to  the  people  to  give  their  personal  services 
to  aid  in  the  completion  of  the  unfinished  fortifications 
of  the  city.     Four  days  later  3000  persons  were  at 


TURTLE   BAY 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


397 


OLD    STOREHOUSE    AT   TURTLE   BAY 


work,  and  even  the  city  newspapers  suspended  pub- 
lication in  order  to  give  a  helping  hand.     The  men 
who  handled  pick  and  spade  were  journeymen  print- 
ers, college  students,  sons  of  Erin,  members  of  Asbury 
African    Church,   pi- 
lots,  masons,    and 
many  heads   of  man- 
ufacturing   establish- 
ments.   School-teach- 
ers  and    their  pupils 
went  out  together  to 
give    their    aid,    and 
urchins  who  were  too 
small  to  lift  a  spade 

carried  earth  on  shingles  to  add  their  mite  to  the  breast- 
works. Such  was  the  magnificent  display  that  New 
York  made  of  its  heart  of  fire;  and  when  the  works 
were  completed,  every  lad  who  could  carry  a  musket 
on  his  tender  shoulders  offered  himself  to  be  enlisted 

for  the  war. 

To  guard  against  inva- 
sion by  way  of  Long  Island 
Sound,  the  fortifications 
built  upon  the  East  River 
during  the  Revolution  were 
strengthened,  and  new  ones 
were  erected.  Hell  Gate  and 
the  channels  of  the  East 
River  were  occupied  by  bat- 
teries, some  of  which  were 
protected  by  towers.  On 

Hallett's  Point  quite  an  extensive  work  was  laid  out,  and 
named  Fort  Stevens.  In  its  rear,  on  Lawrence  Hill, 


TOWER    AT    HALLETT  S    POINT 


39^  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

which  commanded  a  wide  sweep  of  land  and  water,  a 
stone  tower  was  erected,  which  stood  there  until  re- 
cently, when  the  hill  was  levelled.  On  Mill  Rock, 
where  in  late  years  Sandy  Gibson  built  his  rustic 
bower  of  refreshment  for  wearied  fishermen,  a  very 
strong  block-house  and  a  powerful  battery  were  placed, 
adding  to  the  already  sufficient  terrors  of  rock  and 
current.  The  fort  at  Horn's  Hook  was  renewed  ;  re- 
doubts were  built  at  Rhinelander  Point  and  at  the 
mouth  of  Harlem  Creek  ;  and  at  Benson's,  nearly  on  a 
line  with  the  present  Second  Avenue,  was  a  smaller 
earthwork  intended  to  guard  the  mill-dam  and  fording- 
place  on  the  creek.  Intrenchments  extended  back 
to  Benson's  Creek,  which  then  emptied  into  Harlem 


FORT  STEVENS  AND  MILL  ROCK 

River  at  the  cove.  At  the  head  of  Harlem  Creek 
was  the  beginning  of  a  parapet  and  ditch,  which  ran 
to  Fort  Clinton,  on  an  elevated  rock,  now  known  as 
Mount  St.  Vincent,  in  the  north-eastern  part  of  Cen- 
tral Park.  These  defences  bristled  with  the  para- 
phernalia of  war  when  completed,  but  the  enemy 
never  came  to  test  them.  The  ploughshare  and  pick- 


FORT    CLINTON   AND    HARLEM    CREEK 

axe  have  almost  obliterated  them  and  left  but  the 
merest  fragment  here  and  there  by  way  of  remem- 
brance. The  roll-call  of  the  Destroyer  has  been  even 
more  busy  among  the  battalions  of  their  defenders. 
Yet  to-day  I  number  among  my  friends,  still  erect 
and  stalwart,  though  approaching  the  century  mile- 
stone of  his  life,  a  gallant,  white-haired  gentleman 
who,  in  the  ruddy  strength  of  eighteen  years,  marched 
out  under  the  command  of  Capt.  Thomas  Addis  Em- 
met to  do  his  devoir  as  a  soldier  of  freedom.  Emmet, 
who  died  in  a  court-room  in  the  city  while  pleading 
an  important  case,  lies  buried  under  the  shadow  of  old 
St.  Paul's. 

We  were  talking  the  other  day  about  the  islands  in 
the  East  River,  the  old  colonel  and  I,  and  he  ex- 
pressed his  surprise  that  they  had  so  long  been  a 
sealed  book  to  him,  as  they  yet  were  even  to  the 
New  Yorker  to  whom  they  came  as  a  territorial  heri- 
tage. Did  you  ever  hear,  I  inquired,  that  a  battle 
had  been  fought  upon  one  of  them  ?  and  he  confessed 
that  it  had  taken  him  eighty  years  to  find  it  out. 
Then  I  told  him  the  story  of  the  engagement  at  Ran- 
dall's Island,  which  was  known  to  military  map-makers 
as  Montressor's  Island,  on  a  September  evening,  in 


400  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

1776.*  On  this  island  the  British  had  placed  a  quan- 
tity of  ammunition  and  stores,  and  the  Americans  de- 
termined, if  possible,  to  seize  them.  A  week  after 
the  brilliant  and  successful  battle  of  Harlem  Plains  a 
battalion  of  250  picked  men,  under  command  of  Colo- 
nel Jackson,  of  Massachusetts,  guided  by  Major  Hen- 
ly,  aide-de-camp  to  General  Heath,  made  a  descent 
upon  the  British  at  Montressor's  Island,  with  the  idea 
of  giving  the  redcoats  a  surprise.  It  was  a  dark  night, 
September  24th,  and  the  plans  were  well  laid,  and 
would  have  been  successful  had  not  an  impetuous 
soldier  discharged  his  gun  prematurely.  As  it  was, 
the  little  column  charged  bravely  against  the  earth- 
works that  were  defended  by  twice  their  numbers. 

*  In  the  course  of  writing  these  papers,  I  find  that  the  island  to  which 
we  give  the  name  Randall  was  known  to  our  fathers  as  Randel's  Island, 
and  the  weight  of  testimony  seems  to  give  weight  to  the  latter  designa- 
tion. Originally  known  as  Little  Barent's  Island,  this  was  corrupted 
into  Little  Barn  Island.  When  Elias  Pipon  bought  it  in  1732  he  built 
a  substantial  house  there,  into  which  he  removed  his  family,  and  chris- 
tened it  Belle  Isle.  Fifteen  years  later  George  Talbot  purchased  the 
property,  settled  on  it,  and  gave  it  his  own  name.  In  1772  he  sold  the 
island  to  Capt.  John  Montressor,  who  resided  there  when  the  British 
troops  occupied  it,  and  on  the  maps  of  the  period  it  is  designated  as 
Montressor  Island.  The  island  passed  into  the  hands  of  Samuel  Ogden 
in  the  spring  of  1784,  but  he  had  no  chance  to  change  its  name,  for  in 
the  fall  of  the  same  year  he  sold  it  to  Jonathan  Randel  for  the  sum  of 
,£24.  It  was  from  the  executors  of  this  gentleman  that  the  city  pur- 
chased the  island  for  $50,000  in  1835,  and  the  city  has  evidently  sought 
to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  its  last  owner,  but  has  disagreed  with 
him  in  the  manner  of  spelling  his  name.  However,  it  is  the  misfortune 
of  a  hero  killed  in  battle  to  have  h?s  name  misspelled  in  the  despatches, 
and  it  is  probably  too  late  to  do  justice  to  the  memory  of  Brother  Jona- 
than. "  My  little  dear,"  said  the  genial  showman  to  the  little  girl  who 
asked  him  which  of  the  animals  was  a  camel  and  which  a  hippopotamus, 
"you  pays  your  money  and  you  takes  your  choice." 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


401 


It  was  a  magnificent  but  useless  display  of  gallantry. 
The  assaulting  column  was  repulsed  with  the  loss  of 
twenty-two  men — as  many  as  had  been  slain  on  Har- 
lem Plains.  Among  the  killed  was  Major  Henly,  who 
was  shot  at  the  head  of  his  men  and  while  cheering 
them  on.  His  body  was  recovered,  carried  back  to 
the  American  camp,  and  buried  by  the  side  of  Colonel 
Knowlton,  hero  of  the  engagement  of  the  week  be- 
fore, within  the  embankments  of  a  redoubt  on  the 
lofty  bank  of  the  Harlem  River.  The  prominent 
outlines  of  the  earthworks  on  that  wooded  promon- 
tory and  the  old  road  down  the  steep  hill  to  the  cove 
beyond  High  Bridge  have  but  very  recently  given 
way  to  the  touch  of  time  and  improvement.  It  was 
a  sad  surprise  to  the  Americans,  this  first  and  only 
battle  on  the  islands  of  the  East  River. 

"  The  Americans  were  scooped,  weren't  they  ?"  in- 
quired Master  Felix.     Now,  I  hate  slang  of  any  sort, 


FORT    FISH 


26 


4O2  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

and  yet  I  have  been  forced  more  than  once  to  admit 
that  it  is  very  expressive  in  the  way  of  phraseology, 
and  that  much  of  it  is  very  good  English.  So,  as  I 
meditated  upon  a  proper  method  of  rebuke, it  occurred 
to  me  that  the  word  might  be  of  Dutch  derivation, 
and  turning  to  my  library  I  became  convinced  that  it 
was  so.  For  a  traveller  from  Holland,  who  passed 
through  "  the  island  of  Manathans  "  200  years  ago, 
has  left  it  on  record  that  when  he  reached  Nieu  Haer- 
lem  he  stopped  at  the  house  of  one  Geresolveert  (that 
is,  his  Christian  name  was  "  Resolved  "),  who  was  a 
scoup,  or  constable,  of  New  Amsterdam.  Evidently 
he  was  the  right  sort  of  man  for  his  business,  for  the 
guileless  traveller  adds  that  his  house  was  "constantly 
filled  with  people  all  the  time,  drinking  for  the  most 
part  an  agreeable  rum."  The  inference  from  his  titu- 
lar designation  is  irresistible.  It  is  plain  that  the 
scoup  who  gathered  in  offenders  against  the  laws  has 
enriched  the  dictionary  of  slang  with  one  of  its  most 
expressive  words.  Master  Felix  is  right.  The  Ameri- 
cans were  scooped. 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  403 


CHAPTER   VII 

PANORAMA  OF  ANCIENT  EAST  RIVER  HOMES — A  LOW  DUTCH  FARM- 
HOUSE—AT TURTLE  BAY  FARM — THE  GROVE  IN  THE  WOODS — OLD 
GRAVES  AT  THE  WATER-SIDE. 

NELLIE  and  the  old  colonel  are  walking  in  the 
flower-garden,  with  their  heads  close  together,  and  as 
intent  on  each  other  as  if  they  were  a  pair  of  lovers. 
They  are  often  at  the  river-side,  finding  endless  enter- 
tainment, apparently,  in  the  beautiful  panorama  of  the 
East  River.  The  garden  has  flourished  all  summer 
under  my  daughter's  dainty  hands.  Roses,  holly- 
hocks, and  lilies  have  ceased  to  bloom,  but  the  beds 
are  gay  with  marigolds,  lady's-slippers,  petunias,  Indian- 
shot,  cockscomb,  mignonette,  and  the  white,  purple, 
and  pink  blossoms  of  the  morning-glory.  For  my 
own  pleasure  I  planted  a  cluster  of  sunflowers,  and  a 
score  of  sturdy  disks  of  gold  turn  themselves  to  the 
monarch  of  day  as  he  wheels  across  the  sky,  and  sway 
with  the  winds.  On  the  other  side  of  the  broad  path, 
the  corn,  pumpkins,  and  tomatoes  flourish  luxuriantly, 
to  the  delight  of  black  Diana's  heart,  and  Nebuchad- 
nezzar and  his  kindred  have  made  discovery  of  a  bed 
of  catnip,  among  whose  fragrant  stalks  they  roll  and 
twist  their  lithe  bodies  with  perhaps  a  dim  remem- 
brance of  ancestral  tiger  days  in  the  jungle. 

As  I  look  out  upon  my  little  kingdom  of  petunias 
and  tomatoes  the  thought  comes  to  me,  that  after 


404  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

man  had  been  created  the  first  care  of  his  Creator 
was  to  make  a  garden  for  him.  "  And  the  Lord  God 
planted  a  garden,"  says  the  record.  Then  follows  a 
glimpse  of  home  and  its  comforts  in  the  narration 
that  "  out  of  the  ground  "  grew  "  every  tree  that  is 
pleasant  to  the  sight  and  good  for  food."  It  is  a 
homely  picture,  perhaps,  to  be  inserted  by  the  side  of 
the  canvas  on  which  chaos  and  the  birth  of  a  world 
are  painted,  but  I  understand  it  here  with  my  garden 
spread  before  me,  and  can  even  fancy  how  lonely  it 
must  have  been  for  Adam,  with  all  its  fresh,  young 
beauty,  when  he  had  only  his  cats  to  keep  him  com- 
pany. Those  figures  coming  towards  me,  the  daugh- 
ter whose  years  have  not  yet  reached  a  score  and  the 
friend  and  comrade  whose  summers  are  climbing  up 
into  five  score,  bear  witness  to  my  heart  with  every 
step  that  "  it  is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be 
alone,"  and  my  tongue  instinctively  hails  them.  "  What 
are  you  two  plotting  against — the  peace  of  this  com- 
monwealth ?"  "  Felix,"  said  the  old  colonel,  solemnly, 
"  ask  the  cats.  They  have  heard  us,  and  you  ought 
to  know  their  language  by  this  time."  My  daughter 
smiled  mischievously,  and  said,  "  Do  you  remember 
what  your  grandmother  used  to  tell  you,  when  you 
asked  what  she  was  to  give  for  dessert  ?"  I  could  but 
smile.  The  mention  of  my  grandmother,  the  unfor- 
gotten  guardian  of  the  golden  days  of  life's  fairyland 
— the  magic  epoch  which  every  man  recalls  with  a 
touch  of  tender  reverence  in  his  voice  as  he  utters  the 
time-worn  preface  "  when  I  was  a  boy,"  always  brings 
a  smile  and  peace. 

Once  more  I  am  in  the  old-fashioned  dining-room, 
where  my  grandmother  sits  stately  and  dignified  at 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


405 


the  head  of  the  table  of  polished  mahogany,  on  which 
mats  do  service  for  table-cloth,' under  the  service  of 
priceless  china;  where  Abraham,  the  colored  waiter, 
whose  mother  had  been  my  grandmother's  slave, 
stands  behind  her  chair,  erect  as  a  grenadier ;  where 
an  impatient  urchin,  whose  great  gray  eyes  and  round- 
ed cheeks  I  have  long  ceased  to  see  in  the  glass,  is 
seated  in  torture  on  a  straight-backed  chair,  which  he 
abominates,  and  I  know  he  has  put  a  question,  for 


MECHANICS     BELL  TOWER 


across  the  polished  surface  of  the  dark  mahogany 
comes  a  dignified  utterance  which  is  strangely  in  con- 
trast with  the  love  that  I  never  failed  to  find  in  my 
grandmother's  eyes — "  Wait  and  see  !" 

It  was  natural  that  we  should  fall  into  talk  once 
more  of  our  favorite  theme,  the  beauties  of  the  East 
River  shore  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  and  that  the 


406  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

old  colonel  and  I  should  compare  recollections  of  the 
days  when  it  was  peerless  for  scenery.  The  tourist 
now  sees  a  succession  of  docks,  broken  here  and  there 
by  rocks  on  which  shanties  have  been  thrown  togeth- 
er, by  the  remains  of  a  bluff,  which  recalls  the  terraces 
of  a  gentleman's  country-seat  in  the  past,  by  the 
ghosts  of  some  old  houses  that  were  mansions  of 
wealth  in  the  past,  or  by  a  house  and  garden  here  and 
there,  decayed  but  still  genteel,  bent  upon  keeping  up 
appearances  to  the  last.  Some  few  landmarks  still 
survive.  The  old  mechanics'  bell,  which  for  nearly 
sixty  years  has  rung  out  the  hours  of  work  and  dinner 
over  the  ship-yards  of  the  Eleventh  Ward,  and  whose 
music  is  one  of  the  recollections  of  my  boyhood — re- 
calling days  when  I  "  played  hookey  "  from  school  in 
order  to  witness  a  launch,  and  the  clangor  of  the  bell 
was  a  sort  of  brazen  conscience  that  took  the  edge  off 
my  enjoyment — still  stands  and  keeps  up  its  warning 
of  the  flight  of  time,  close  by  the  East  River,  at  the 
foot  of  Fourth  Street.  The  old  shot-tower  yet  looms 
up  hard  by  the  foot  of  Fifty-third  Street,  and  people 
who  wish  to  speak  of  the  neighborhood  begin  as  of 
yore  with  the  preface  :  "  You  know  where  the  old  shot- 
tower  is,"  as  if  everybody  had  known  it  from  infancy. 
The  rocky  height  known  as  Dead  Man's  Rock,  that 
used  to  mark  the  beginning  of  Jones's  Wood  half  a 
century  ago,  and  that  still  has  the  same  name,  is  there 
yet,  but  has  become  ignoble  as  the  boundary  of  Battle 
Row,  all  too  well  known  in  police  annals.  And  at 
Horn's  Hook,  opposite  Hallett's  Point,  a  group  of 
great  elms  still  sway  in  the  breeze  as  they  did  in  the 
days  when  Halleck  and  Paulding  and  Irving  walked 
beneath  their  shade. 


THE   WALTER    FRANKLIN    HOUSE 


The  East  River  was  by  nature  so  much  more  pict- 
uresque than  the  Hudson,  that  the  wealth  and  fashion 
of  the  little  City  of  New  York  fixed  upon  it  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century  as  a  choice  spot  for 
country-seats.  Pearl  Street  had  become  noted  in  the 
colony  for  its  stately  mansions,  with  gardens  stretch- 
ing to  the  water-side.  Then  came  the  cluster  of  aris- 
tocratic dwellings  at  Franklin  Square,  the  estate  of 
Rutgers,  the  farms  of  the  Bayards  and  De  Lanceys, 
the  seat  of  Marinus  Willett  at  Corlear's  Hook,  the 
boweries  of  Peter  Gerard  Stuyvesant  and  his  brother 
Nicholas  Stuyvesant,  and  beyond  these,  for  four  miles 
up  the  river,  the  early  part  of  this  century  witnessed 
the  erection  of  a  large  number  of  elegant  villas — like 
the  Coster  mansion  near  Thirtieth  Street,  on  the  river- 
bank,  a  stately  edifice  in  the  Grecian  style  of  archi- 
tecture, which,  in  my  boyhood,  was  the  country  resi- 
dence of  Anson  G.  Phelps.  But  even  as  a  boy  I  had 
more  interest  in  the  historic  homes  of  the  Kip  and 


4o8 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


Beekman  families.  I  remember  both  of  these  houses 
well.  The  Kip  mansion,  erected  in  1655  by  Jacobus 
Kip,  was  a  large  double  structure,  with  three  windows 
on  one  side  of  the  door  and  two  on  the  other,  and 
with  an  ample  wing  besides.  It  was  built  of  brick 
imported  from  Holland,  and  a  stone  coat  of  arms  of 
the  Kip  family  projected  over  the  doorway.  It  was 
the  oldest  house  on  the  island  when  it  was  demolished 
in  1851,  and  Thirty-fifth  Street  and  Second  Avenue 
now  pass  over  its  site  and  give  no  sign  of  its  exist- 
ence and  story.  Neither  Oloffe,  the  dreamer,  nor 
Heinrich  Kip,  whose  great  goose  gun  was  the  terror 
of  prowling  Indians,  would  now  recognize  the  place 


JACOB   HARSEN    HOUSE 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  409 

that  even  in  my  recollection  was  encompassed  by 
pleasant  trees  and  sweet  with  grassy  meadows  that 
were  reflected  in  the  sparkling  waters  of  the  little  bay. 
In  Turtle  Bay,  half  a  mile  above,  the  British  ships 
of  war  used  to  find  safe  harbor  in  the  storms  of  win- 
ter, and  here  Lord  Howe  found  a  convenient  landing- 
place  when  he  invaded  the  island  and  drove  out  "  the 
rebels."  On  a  knoll  above  the  bay  and  overlooking 
it  stood,  near  Forty-first  Street,  the  summer  residence 
of  Francis  Bayard  Winthrop,  whose  estate  was  known 
as  the  Turtle  Bay  farm.  There  was  a  grist-mill  on 
this  place,  fed  by  a  brook  that  took  its  rise  in  the  low- 
er part  of  the  present  Central  Park.  It  was  known, 
before  the  time  of  the  Winthrops,  as  De  Voor's  mill- 
stream,  and  where  it  crossed  Fifty-fourth  Street,  be- 
tween Second  and  Third  avenues,  just  below  "  Old 
Cato's"  on  the  Eastern  post -road,  there  used  to  be 
a  wooden  bridge  of  which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Burnaby,  a 
traveller  in  these  parts  in  1759,  says:  "  In  the  way  there 
is  a  bridge,  about  three  miles  distant  from  New  York, 
where  you  always  pass  over  as  you  return,  called  the 
Kissing  Bridge,  where  it  is  a  part  of  the  etiquette  to 
salute  the  lady  who  has  put  herself  under  your  pro- 
tection." Mr.  Burnaby  speaks  as  if  he  had  made  trial 
of  the  etiquette  of  the  day,  and  evidently  he  found  it 
soothing  if  not  pleasant,  for  he  utters  not  a  word  of 
protest.  The  lady's  opinion  is  not  given,  but  she 
must  have  known  the  penalty,  and  in  a  rural  scene  like 
this  rusticity  is  pardoned.  The  mill,  the  brook,  the 
bridge,  the  fields  silvered  in  the  moonlight,  the  river  a 
few  rods  away,  a  wilderness  of  woodlands  at  one  side 
and  the  spires  of  the  city  rising  three  miles  away— 
can  it  be  that  it  is  of  the  centre  of  a  busy,  bustling 


410  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

metropolis  that  these  words  are  written  and  this  pict- 
ure painted  ?* 

There  is  one  landmark  of  which  I  have  not  spoken, 
and  that  is  yet  the  most  notable  of  those  that  remain. 
Close  by  the  old  shot-tower  stands  a  house  that  is  a 
perfect  specimen  of  the  Dutch  architecture  of  two 
centuries  ago,  and  is  probably  the  oldest  building  in 
the  city.  Long  before  the  War  of  the  Revolution  it 
was  known  as  the  Spring  Valley  farm-house.  Out- 


*  In  1809,  when  the  commissioners  of  streets  and  roads  were  laying 
out  the  plan  of  the  new  city  above  Houston,  then  North  Street — a  plan 
which,  owing  to  the  accuracy  of  the  survey  made  by  John  Randel,  Jr., 
their  engineer,  has  stood  the  test  of  sixty  years  without  revealing  a  mis- 
take —  the  Bowery  was  the  principal  road  leading  to  Harlem  and  to 
King's  Bridge.  At  the  present  Madison  Square  the  Eastern  post-road 
diverged  from  the  Bloomingdale  Road,  crossing  Fourth  Avenue  near 
Twenty-ninth  Street,  and  passing  through  the  hamlet  known  as  Kip's 
Bay,  or  Kipsborough,  which  lay  to  the  west  of  Third  Avenue  and  ex- 
tended from  Thirty-second  to  Thirty-eighth  Street.  Thence  it  swept 
towards  the  west,  close  to  the  Croton  reservoir  at  Forty-second  Street, 
made  another  bend,  and  crossed  the  road  to  Turtle  Bay  on  the  East  Riv- 
er, at  Third  Avenue,  between  Forty-seventh  and  Forty-eighth  streets. 
Sweeping  still  to  the  east,  it  crossed  Second  Avenue  at  Fifty-second 
Street,  crossed  it  again  at  Sixty-second  Street,  and  then  followed  the  line 
of  Third  Avenue,  passing  Harsen's  cross-road  at  Seventy -first  Street. 
At  Seventy-seventh  Street  and  Third  Avenue  it  crossed  a  small  stream 
known  in  the  last  century  as  the  Saw-Kill,  and  Mr.  Randel  assures  us 
that  the  bridge  which  spanned  this  stream  was  known  to  all  the  young 
men  and  women  of  his  day  as  the  Kissing  Bridge.  But  the  English  his- 
torian of  the  last  century,  and  a  clergymen  to  boot,  assures  us  that  the 
Kissing  Bridge  was  the  edifice  of  plank  that  crossed  De  Voor's  mill- 
stream  at  Fifty-fourth  Street,  between  Second  and  Third  avenues, 
while  a  solemn  Dutch  historian  of  the  seventeenth  century,  whose  seri- 
ousness is  not  to  be  doubted,  has  placed  it  on  record  that  the  original 
and  genuine  Kissing  Bridge  was  the  one  which  crossed  the  stream  that 
rippled  down  through  Pearl  Street  from  the  Collect  Pond  and  crossed 
the  post-road — now  Park  Row — at  the  intersection  of  that  street. 


MY  SUMMER   ACRE  413 

side,  the  walls  are  clapboarded,  but  an  inside  view  dis- 
closes the  massive  stone  and  the  huge  cross-beams 
hewed  out  of  solid  oak.  The  grading  of  the  street 
has  made  an  additional  story  of  the  cellar,  but  origi- 
nally the  house  had  a  single  story  and  attic,  with  long 
sloping  roof  and  ample  porches  —  the  very  ideal  of 
Knickerbocker  rest  and  luxury.  A  generation  ago  it 
was  known  as  the  Brevoort  estate  and  house ;  before 
that  time  it  bore  the  names  of  Odel  and  Arden,  but 
the  builders  belonged  to  the  family  who  gave  their 
name  to  the  mill-stream,  and  whose  name,  like  that  of 
many  another  old  Dutch  family,  is  spelled  in  a  differ- 
ent way  each  time  that  it  is  written,  as  thus :  Duffore, 
Deffore,  Devoor,  Devore,  and  De  Voor.  The  original 
grant  of  sixty  acres  was  made  by  Sir  Edmund  An- 
dross  to  David  Duffore  in  1677,  and  the  spelling  of 
the  name  is  changed  in  each  successive  deed  on  record. 
There  is  another  venerable  house  standing  on  East 
Sixty-first  Street,  near  Avenue  A,  which  was  com- 
pleted just  before  the  Revolution  as  a  summer  resi- 
dence for  Colonel  William  S.  Smith,  who  had  married 
the  only  daughter  of  Vice-President  John  Adams.  It 
is  emphatically  a  mansion,  with  two  huge  wings  joined 
together  by  a  portico  in  front  and  an  extension  in  the 
rear,  and  its  erection,  together  with  an  unfortunate 
speculation  in  East  River  real  estate,  bankrupted  the 
owner  before  his  work  was  completed.  The  records 
show  that  his  possession  of  the  thirty  acres  he  had 
bought  from  Peter  Prau  Van  Zandt  was  very  brief. 
Much  more  of  an  old-time  mansion  was  the  Beekman 
House,  which,  until  1874,  stood  near  the  corner  of  Fifty- 
first  Street  and  First  Avenue.  In  its  later  days  it  had 
fallen  from  its  high  estate  into  shabby  disrepute,  but 


4H  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

neither  the  hand  of  time  nor  the  presence  of  a  troop 
of  ragged  tenants  could  destroy  its  dignity.  About 
it  clustered  more  historic  recollections  than  were  at- 
tached to  any  other  house  in  the  city,  and  the  pen  of 

Madame  Riedesel,  wife  of  the 
general  who  surrendered  with 
Burgoyne,  has  immortalized  it. 
Howe,  Chester,  and  Carleton 
held  possession  of  it  more  than 
seven  years,  and  during  that 
THE  BEEKMAN  GREENHOUSE  time  it  was  the  scene  of  the  trial 
and  condemnation  of  Captain 

Nathan  Hale,  the  martyr  spy  of  the  Revolution.  Its 
greenhouse,  in  which  the  latter  is  said  to  have  passed 
his  last  night  on  earth,  and  its  extensive  gardens,  fell 
with  all  their  glories  twenty  years  before  the  old  man- 
sion gave  up  the  ghost,  but  I  recall  them  every  time 
the  train  whirls  me  over  their  grave. 

What  a  place  of  delight  Jones's  Wood  used  to  be 
in  the  olden  days  !  It  was  the  last  fastness  of  the  for- 
est primeval  that  once  covered  the  rocky  shores  of  the 
East  River,  and  its  wildness  was  almost  savage.  In 
the  infant  days  of  the  colony  it  was  the  scene  of  tra- 
dition and  fable,  having  been  said  to  be  a  favorite  re- 
sort of  the  pirates  who  dared  the  terrors  of  Hell  Gate, 
and  came  here  to  land  their  treasures  and  hold  their 
revels.  Later,  its  shores  were  renowned  for  its  fish- 
eries, and  under  the  shadow  of  its  rocky  bluff  and 
overhanging  oaks  the  youth  of  a  former  generation 
cast  their  lines  and  waited  for  bites.  The  ninety  acres 
which  composed  the  wooded  farm  that  was  known  in 
olden  times  as  the  Louvre  passed  through  many  hands 
until  it  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Provoost  fam- 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  417 

ily  in  1742,  and  here  they  built  and  occupied  for  near- 
ly sixty  years.  Then  they  deeded  their  broad  acres 
to  Mr.  John  Jones,  reserving  the  family  vault  and  the 
right  of  way  thereto.  The  old  graves  are  there  yet, 
but  the  ancient  chapel  has  been  transformed  into  a 
club-house,  and  the  youthful  athletes  of  to-day  play 
leap-frog  among  the  tombstones. 

It  was  the  custom  of  the  early  settlers  to  have  their 
dead  laid  to  rest  near  the  home  of  the  living,  and  it 
was  not  until  as  late  as  1802  that  the  family  vault  of 
the  Bayards,  at  the  foot  of  Bunker  Hill — now  at  the 
crossing  of  Grand  and  Mulberry  streets — was  demol- 
ished. The  home  of  the  Provoosts,  near  the  foot  of 
Seventy -first  Street,  and  the  family  vault,  cut  in  a 
rocky  knoll  near  by  and  covered  with  a  marble  slab, 
lay  in  neglected  ruin  long  after  the  woods  had  become 
a  favorite  resort  for  picnic  parties.  The  Provoosts 
were  a  remarkable  family,  connected  as  they  were 
with  some  of  the  old  historic  families  of  Manhattan. 
Samuel  Provoost,  whose  mother  was  daughter  and 
heiress  of  old  Harman  Rutgers,  was  an  assistant  min- 
ister of  old  Trinity  when  the  war  broke  out.  Being  a 
thorough  American  at  heart,  his  preaching  gave  of- 
fence to  the  Tories  and  he  was  deprived  of  his  posi- 
tion and  sent  into  retirement,  to  emerge  triumphantly 
afterwards  as  the  first  Bishop  of  New  York  and  Presi- 
dent of  Columbia  College,  his  atma  mater. 

A  cousin  of  the  bishop,  David  Provoost,  better 
known  in  his  day  and  generation  as  "  Ready-money 
Provoost,"  was  quite  another  character.  A  soldier  in 
Washington's  army,  and  wounded  at  the  battle  of 
Long  Island,  he  became  in  after- years  a  noted  smug- 
gler, having  his  chief  stronghold  at  Hallett's  Point, 


4l8  MY    SUMMER   ACRE 

and  successfully  defying  the  officers  of  the  law  to  the 
end  of  his  wild  career.  He  always  had  a  reason  for  his 
faith,  and  as  he  had  plenty  of  money,  his  reasons  were 
listened  to  with  the  deference  that  wealth  commands. 
He  had  fought  against  England  and  taxation,  he  said, 
only  to  be  more  pestered  with  custom-houses  than 
ever.  With  an  assumed  roughness  of  diction,  which 
was  really  foreign  to  his  education  or  social  position, 
he  made  his  defence  openly,  and  to  a  merchant  who 
took  him  to  task,  said  :  "  I'm  for  making  an  honest 
living  by  free -trade.  There's  Congress  just  been  in- 
troducing a  tariff,  as  they  call  it,  and  Madison,  Carroll, 
and  old  Roger  Sherman  and  all  on  'em  are  voting  for 
it,  but  by  the  Eternal,  old  '  Ready  Money '  will  stand 
by  his  '  reserved  rights,'  as  they  call  'em  away  there  in 
Virginny,  and  nullify  the  custom-house  laws  as  long 
as  the  *  Pot '  boils  in  Hell  Gate  !"  The  fiery  old  smug- 
gler was  laid  to  rest  in  the  family  vault,  by  the  side  of 
his  wife,  at  the  ripe  age  of  ninety.  Long  afterwards 
the  boys  used  to  gather  there  and  tell  each  other 
wonderful  stories  of  the  unearthly  doings  of  the  old 
man's  ghost.  Not  one  of  them  could  have  been  per- 
suaded by  all  the  ready  money  in  the  city  to  keep  a 
night's  vigil  under  the  trees  that  overhung  the  lonely, 
desolate  grave.  Music,  dance,  and  merrymaking  must 
have  exorcised  it,  however  obstinate,  long  ago. 

The  September  sunshine,  which  through  the  last 
two  weeks  of  drought  has  seemed  to  be  filled  with 
gold  dust,  has  sprinkled  the  lawn  with  a  fresh  crop  of 
dandelions.  If  this  humble  little  flower  were  an  in- 
mate of  the  greenhouse,  it  would  adorn  fair  bosoms 
and  win  extravagant  admiration,  for  its  beauty  is  un- 
questioned. But  it  keeps  on  its  way  quietly,  and  per- 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  419 

haps  is  happier  in  the  lessons  it  teaches  of  home  joys 
and  fireside  affections.  It  belongs  to  the  home,  and  I 
have  seen  men  pause  and  watch  a  dandelion  that  had 
strayed  into  a  tiny  square  of  grass  in  front  of  a  city 
house,  and- was  sure  that  I  knew  what  was  in  their 
hearts.*  I  knew  their  thoughts  had  gone  back  to  the 
farm  on  which  they  had  been  reared,  the  dooryard 
filled  with  dandelions,  and  the  faces  at  the  window 
that  had  watched  their  departing  steps  years  before. 
It  was  this  remembrance  that,  in  a  railroad  cut  across 
the  river  the  other  day,  turned  fifty  faces  towards  a 
single  yellow  flower  that  had  somehow  taken  root  and 
blossomed  in  a  rocky  crevice  twenty  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  tracks.  Solitary  amid  the  rocks,  beautiful 
by  its  contrast  to  the  rough  stone,  the  little  dandelion 
sat  there  and  bloomed  and  sent  out  its  reminders  of 
home  and  fireside  as  no  grand  lily  or  radiant  rose 
could  have  done. 

No,  Diana.  Tell  the  man  that  I  do  not  want  to 
have  the  grass  cut. 

*  Henry  Ward  Beecher  wrote  a  characteristic  paper  upon  precisely 
this  subject — a  single  dandelion  in  a  city  front-yard.  Mr.  Beecher  re- 
tained such  liking  for  his  own  little  essay  that  not  long  before  his  death 
he  read  it  at  one  of  the  "  Authors'  Readings  "  in  the  Madison  Square 
Theatre.— L. 


420  MY    SUMMER   ACRE 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  HELL  GATE  COLONY  —  GLIMPSES  OF  EAST  RIVER  HOMES  —  ST. 
JAMES'S  CHURCH  —  THE  ASTOR  COUNTRY-HOUSE  —  WHERE  IRVING 
WROTE  "ASTORIA"  —  THE  HOME  OF  ARCHIBALD  GRACIE  —  NEW 
YORK  AND  ITS  VISITORS 

THE  memory  of  my  school-days  haunts  me  even  to 
the  boundaries  of  my  summer  acre.  For  on  the  East 
River  is  a  tract  of  land  which  covers  eight  or  nine 
blocks,  and  extends  from  Seventy-sixth  Street  to  be- 
yond Seventy-ninth  Street  on  the  water-front,  which 
is  the  property  of  the  New  York  Protestant  Episcopal 
Public-school,  which  is  the  charter  name  of  the  Trinity 
School  of  my  boyhood.  Founded  in  1709,  it  was  par- 
tially endowed  by  Trinity  Church,  and  received  this 
bequest  of  valuable  real  estate  in  1800  from  Mr.  Ba- 
ker, and  in  1806  was  incorporated  by  the  Legislature. 
Taxes  and  assessments  have  swallowed  up  half  of  this 
land ;  the  school  had  no  friends  in  the  city  govern- 
ment to  protect  its  interests,  and  had  to  see  its  prop- 
erty forfeited  while  the  City  Fathers  were  lavishing 
lands  and  appropriations  on  the  Church  of  Rome.  In 
1832  the  vestry  of  Trinity  Church  granted  to  the  trus- 
tees, at  a  nominal  rent,  the  lease  of  five  lots  of  ground 
in  Canal,  Varick,  and  Grand  streets,  on  which  was 
erected  a  large  brick  school-house,  that  is  still  stand- 
ing, though  the  school  has  moved  its  headquarters 
three  miles  away.  Here  the  Rev.  Dr.  Morris,  a  ro- 
bust, scholarly,  jolly  graduate  of  Trinity  College, 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  42 1 

Dublin — strict  in  discipline,  but  foremost  in  our  out- 
door sports — wielded  the  rod  diligently  for  nearly  five- 
and-twenty  years.  I  have  pleasant  remembrances  of 
his  reign;  of  wrestlings  with  Anthon's  Homer  and 
Greenleaf's  Arithmetic ;  of  uproarious  singing  which 
sorely  vexed  Dr.  Hodges,  our  musical  instructor,  and 
of  learning  to  flourish  birds  and  skeletons  under  Mr. 
Barlow,  our  elegant  writing-master,  who  always  offi- 
ciated in  a  dress-coat ;  as  well  as  of  countless  merry 
games  of  "  Red  Lion  "  and  "  How  Many  Miles  ?"  in 
the  playgrounds  of  the  school. 

Our  ancestors  had  a  queer  way  of  mixing  up  what 
we  would  now  call  the  sacred  and  the  profane.  They 
went  to  church  regularly,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  and 
quite  as  regularly  they  went  to  the  theatre  also.  Gov- 
ernor and  mayor  had  their  canopied  pews  at  the  one 
place  and  their  curtained  boxes  at  the  other,  and  no- 
body appeared  to  think  the  worse  of  them  for  going 
to  either  place.  When  a  struggling  congregation 
needed  help  to  build  a  church,  the  authorities  would 
order  a  lottery  to  raise  money  for  the  purpose,  and 
when  a  charitable  enterprise  needed  a  helping  hand 
they  would  secure  it  a  benefit  at  the  theatre.  Only 
last  week  I  discovered  in  the  files  of  the  New  York 
Gazette,  Revived  in  the  Weekly  Post-boy,  for  March  26, 
1750,  an  advertisement  which  recited  that  "by  his 
excellency's  permission" — Admiral  George  Clinton 
was  then  governor  of  the  colony — "  a  tragedy  called 
'  The  Orphan  ;  or,  the  Unhappy  Marriage,'  wrote  by 
the  ingenious  Mr.  Otway,"  would  be  performed  the 
next  evening  at  the  theatre  in  Nassau  Street  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Episcopal  Charity-school,  as  Trinity 
School  was  first  termed,  whose  school-house  had  been 


422 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


recently  destroyed  by  fire.  The  advertisement,  after 
giving  the  prices  of  admission,  concludes  with  a  de- 
lightful warning  to  the  gilded  youth  of  the  period  : 
"  To  begin  precisely  at  half  an  hour  after  6  o'clock, 
and  no  person  to  be  admitted  behind  the  scenes." 

Just  below  the  school  lands  were  the  summer  resi- 
dences of  Richard  Riker  and  John  Lawrence.  The 
former  was  for  nearly  half  a  century  a  well-known 
character  in  the  city.  In  his  dashing  youth  "  Dickey  " 
Riker  was  the  mirror  of  fashion ;  in  his  limping  old 
age  he  was  known  to  the  legal  fraternity  as  "  Old 
Pecooler,"  from  his  habit,  as  recorder,  of  beginning 
almost  every  charge  to  his  juries  with  the  remark  that 
there  was  something  "  very  pecooler,"  as  he  phrased 
the  word  peculiar,  about  the  case  in  question.  With 
the  exception  of  two  years,  Mr.  Riker  filled  the  office 
of  recorder  from  1815  to  1838.  His  pretty  cottage  on 
the  East  River,  whose  broad  veranda,  shaded  by  oaks 


RICHARD  RIKER'S  HOUSE 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  423 

on  either  side,  was  then  a  bower  of  rest  and  lovely 
scenery,  no  longer  exists,  for  Seventy -fourth  Street 
passes  directly  over  its  site  and  through  the  grassy 
knoll  on  which  it  was  situated. 

Some  of  the  old  residences,  frame  structures  that 
were  erected  seventy  or  eighty  years  ago,  still  stand, 
though  their  surroundings  are  all  changed,  and  it 
seems  a  pity  that  they  have  survived  the  destruction 
of  the  green  fields  and  graceful  bits  of  forest  that  sur- 
rounded them.  Ancient  Ash  Brook — as  the  old  Law- 
rence mansion  at  the  foot  of  East  Twenty-fifth  Street 
used  to  be  called — the  home  in  my  boyhood  of  John 
Lawrence,  merchant  and  man  of  affairs,  continues  to 
defy  Time's  ravages,  and  is  yet  embowered  in  a  lovely 
garden  that  occupies  nearly  a  city  block,  shut  in  by  a 
high  brick  wall.  The  pretty  little  stream  long  known 
as  Ash  Brook  has  been  stamped  out  by  pavements, 
but  there  are  some  oaks  still  standing  there  that  can 
recall  the  music  of  its  ripples.  At  Eighty- second 
Street  and  Avenue  B  is  the  country  residence  of 
Joshua  Jones,  a  long  wooden  structure  of  olden  fash- 
ion, with  a  gallery  on  the  roof,  and  the  usual  broad 
verandas  in  front  and  rear.  Two  blocks  above,  the 
homestead  of  the  Schermerhorn  family,  a  more  ambi- 
tious structure  of  two  stories  and  a  half,  surmounted 
by  a  cupola,  still  looks  out  towards  Hell  Gate  and  the 
islands.  The  family  owned  at  one  time  considerable 
real  estate  in  this  section,  and  several  houses  were 
built  by  and  for  the  younger  members.  Their  neigh- 
bors were  the  Jones  families,  the  Winthrops,  Duns- 
combs,  Kings,  John  Wilkes,  a  lawyer,  whose  city  house 
was  in  Wall  Street,  and  who  was  a  relative  of  the  fa- 
mous and  eccentric  English  Member  of  Parliament 


424  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

of  that  name ;  Josiah  Ogden  Hoffman,  Charles  King, 
and  John  N.  Grenzebach,  whose  father's  grocery  store 
on  Park  Row  had  been  an  ancient  city  landmark. 
The  latter's  estate  was  at  Third  Avenue  and  Seventy- 
fifth  Street,  and  the  house  was  an  ambitious  frame 
structure  of  three  stories,  which  for  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury attracted  notice  as  a  relic  of  a  luxurious  period 
in  the  past. 

The  little  colony  of  citizens  who  had  their  country 
places  hereabouts  were  mainly  Episcopalians,  and  in 
the  summers,  which  were  unduly  prolonged  for  them 
by  yellow -fever  visitations,  they  felt  the  need  of  a 
church.  When,  in  1807,  the  city  corporation  thought 
of  improving  their  common  lands,  which  then  extend- 
ed from  about  Forty-fifth  to  Eighty-sixth  Street,  they 
laid  out  a  park  between  Sixty-sixth  and  Sixty-ninth 
streets  and  Third  and  Fourth  avenues,  on  whose 
grounds  now  stand  the  Seventh  Regiment  Armory, 
the  Normal  School,  and  several  hospitals,  and  called 
it  Hamilton  Square.  A  plot  of  land  at  Lexington 
Avenue  and  Sixty- ninth  Street  was  marked,  on  the 
map  then  made,  as  "  a  piece  of  land  intended  for  a 
church  or  academy."  For  this  lot  application  was 
made  to  the  authorities,  and  the  vestry  of  Trinity 
Church  was  petitioned  for  assistance.  Both  requests 
were  granted,  the  common  council  giving  the  land, 
and  Trinity  Church  a  gift  of  $3000.  The  church,  af- 
terwards known  as  St.  James's,  Yorkville,  was  conse- 
crated in  1810  by  Bishop  Moore.  It  was  not  much 
of  a  building,  architecturally  speaking.  Indeed,  it 
was  a  plain  wooden  structure,  of  the  house-carpenter 
style  of  architecture,  surmounted  by  a  little  pepper- 
box sort  of  a  steeple.  But  what  mattered  its  style? 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  425 

It  had  no  rival  within  sight.  For  fifteen  years  after 
it  was  finished  Yorkville  had  no  existence,  not  a  house 
having  been  built  on  the  common  lands.  It  was  a 
country  church,  amid  outlying  farm  lands.  Situat- 
ed on  the  summit  of  Hamilton  Hill,  it  was  a  land- 
mark for  miles  around.  A  road  crossed  the  island  just 
above  it,  at  Seventy-second  Street,  known  as  Harsen's 
Road,  and  through  this  rural  lane  came  the  rector 
of  St.  Michael's,  Bloomingdale,  to  preach  on  summer 
mornings,  when  the  sacred  edifice  was  beset  on  all 
sides  by  the  carriages  of  the  rich  and  the  wagons  of 
humbler  folk.  For  thirty  years  there  was  only  sum- 
mer preaching  in  this  old  country  church,  and  then 
the  town  had  grown  up  about  it,  and  it  threw  away 
its  Bloomingdale  crutch  and  walked  alone.  Park, 
church,  and  farms  have  been  obliterated,  and  yet  I 
turn  from  the  river's  side  and  look  westwardly,  and 
fancy  that  I  can  once  more  see  the  familiar  old  pep- 
per-box spire  which  I  was  taught  in  boyhood  to  rev- 
erence. The  hand  of  the  destroyer  who  wields  the 
pick  is  mighty,  but  more  potent  still  is  the  slight,  gen- 
tle touch  of  memory. 

The  first  vestry  of  the  church  was  selected  in  1810. 
The  wardens  were  Peter  Schermerhorn  and  Francis 
B.  Winthrop.  The  vestrymen  were  David  Mumford, 
John  Mason,  John  G.  Bogert,  Peter  Schermerhorn, 
William  H.  Jephson,  John  Jones,  John  H.  Talman, 
Charles  King ;  and  the  inspectors  of  election  were 
Joshua  Jones,  Martin  Hoffman,  and  Isaac  Jones.  In 
1843,  when  the  church  first  called  a  minister  of  its 
own,  the  wardens  were  Joseph  Foulke  and  Peter 
Schermerhorn,  and  among  the  vestrymen  were  Thom- 
as Addis  Emmet,  John  H.  Riker,  and  Rufus  Prime. 


426  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

Perhaps  it  would  be  hardly  proper  in  this  connection 
to  speak  of  those  venerable  men  as  the  Hell  Gate  col- 
onists, but  such  they  were  indeed,  attracted  to  this 
section  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan  by  its  marvellous 
and  diversified  beauties  of  land  and  water.  They 
built  their  homes  here,  erected  their  family  tombs, 
set  the  light  of  their  church  on  a  hill,  and  planned  for 
the  peaceful  occupation  of  generations,  little  dream- 
ing that  before  the  century  closed  their  homes  would 
be  swept  away  by  a  tidal  wave  of  population,  and 
their  own  bones  torn  out  of  the  sod  and  trotted  away 
to  some  crowded  city  of  the  dead. 

There  is  but  one  New  York.  I  have  visited  London 
at  my  leisure,  and  have  made  my  home  in  Paris ;  have 
seen  the  tropical  beauty  of  South  American  cities,  and 
the  Arctic  glory  of  the  old  French  towns  in  Canada ; 
but  I  want  to  put  it  on  record  that  there  is  only  one 
New  York,  and  that  it  is  peerless.  No  other  city  pos- 
sesses natural  beauty  to  compare  with  it. 

In  an  article  written  for  the  Talisman  in  1828,  Mr. 
Gulian  C.  Verplanck  takes  the  ground  that  New  York 
was  even  then  one  of  the  pivots  of  creation.  "  It  is  a 
sort  of  thoroughfare,"  he  says,  "a  spot  where  almost 
every  remarkable  character  is  seen  once  in  the  course 
of  his  life,  and  almost  every  remarkable  thing  once  in 
the  course  of  its  existence.  Does  anybody  in  that 
city  want  to  see  a  friend  living  in  Mexico,  or  Calcutta, 
or  China,  all  that  he  has  to  do  is  to  reside  quietly  in 
New  York  and  he  will  be  gratified.  The  object  in 
search  of  which  he  might  compass  half  the  globe  will 
present  itself  in  his  daily  walk  when  he  least  expects 
it."  With  the  exception  of  Mont  Blanc,  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  the  Emperor  of  China,  this  is  probably 


ATLANTIC    GARDEN,   No.  9   BROADWAY 

true.  Here  Jonathan  Edwards,  Whitefield,  and  the 
apostolic  Tennant  have  preached,  and  Oglethorpe  and 
Count  Zinzendorf  have  exhorted ;  here  Washington 
has  dwelt  in  state,  and  Jefferson  has  kept  his  quiet 
house  on  Cedar  Street ;  here  Talleyrand  has  displayed 
his  club-foot  and  his  power  to  be  sarcastic,  even  with 
children;  here  lived  for  a  time  Billaud  de  Varennes, 
who  led  the  French  mob  at  St.  Antoine ;  and  here 
Count  Auguste  Louis  de  Singeron,  one  of  the  gallant 
band  of  officers  who  defended  the  King  on  that  Au- 
gust night  when  the  Tuileries  ran  blood,  sold  cake  and 
candies  to  the  children  ;  here  King  William  IV.,  of 
England,  disported  himself  as  a  midshipman,  learning 
to  skate  on  the  Collect  Pond,  and  King  Louis  Philippe, 
of  France,  taught  school  in  the  old  Somerindyke  man- 
sion on  upper  Broadway  ;  here  Volney,  Cobbett,  Tom 
Moore,  Murat,  the  Bonapartes,  and  heroes  and  acade- 


428  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

micians  enough  to  fill  a  volume  with  their  achieve- 
ments and  set  society  by  the  ears  have  visited  or 
dwelt  in  tents.  The  procession  has  been  moving  on 
ever  since.  I  have  seen  the  future  King  of  England 
on  our  streets;  slender, fiery  Don  Carlos  ;  fierce  Henri 
de  Rochefort ;  the  jovial  but  darksome  "  King  of  the 
Cannibal  Islands,"  whose  august  name  Kalakaua  was 
turned  into  "  Calico  "  by  irreverent  urchins ;  several 
exiled  Haytian  monarchs,  more  or  less  dark  of  aspect ; 
General  Paez,  and  a  long  succession  of  South  Ameri- 
can soldiers  and  rulers  ;  and  even  his  august  autocracy, 
the  Shah  of  Persia,  has  recently  remarked  in  confi- 
dence that  he  would  like  to  visit  New  York,  and  would 
do  it  but  for  the  fear  that  his  distinguished  friends 
who  hold  the  helm  in  Russia  and  England  might  take 
advantage  of  his  absence  to  dismember  his  kingdom. 

In  a  letter  written  by  Washington  Irving,  from 
Paris,  in  1824,  to  Henry  Brevoort,  he  speaks  of  his  in- 
tense delight  at  having  received  a  visit  from  Domi- 
nick  Lynch,  and  having  a  long  chat  over  old  times 
and  old  associates.  They  talked  about  New  York 
until  he  became  homesick.  "  I  do  not  know,"  he 
says,  "  whether  it  is  the  force  of  early  impressions  and 
associations,  but  there  is  a  charm  about  that  little 
spot  of  earth,  the  beautiful  city  and  its  environs,  that 
has  a  perfect  spell  over  my  imagination.  The  bay, 
the  rivers  and  their  wild  and  woody  shores,  the  haunts 
of  my  boyhood  on  land  and  water,  absolutely  have  a 
witchery  over  my  mind."  Then  he  rises  to  a  climax 
which  should  be  read  in  the  hearing  of  American  col- 
onies abroad,  and  writes :  "  I  thank  God  for  having 
been  born  in  such  a  beautiful  place  among  such  beau- 
tiful scenery ;  I  am  convinced  that  I  owe  a  vast  deal 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  429 

of  what  is  good  and  pleasant  in  my  nature  to  the  cir- 
cumstance." I  close  my  eyes,  shut  the  book,  and  try 
to  fancy  Washington  Irving,  as  I  saw  him  in  his  hon- 
ored old  age,  moving  about  these  old-fashioned  rooms. 
It  is  one  of  the  legends  of  the  house,  that  in  the  ear- 
lier years  of  his  fame  he  was  many  times  a  guest  at 
the  table  of  its  hospitable  owner,  and  that  he  knew 
the  family  well  his  letters  attest.  If  I  were  the  own- 
er I  would  rather  that  the  feet  of  Washington  Irving 
had  crossed  my  threshold  than  to  have  numbered 
among  my  visitors  any  or  all  of  the  great  men  I  have 
mentioned. 

To  me  the  whole  atmosphere  of  Hell  Gate  is  redo- 
lent with  the  memory  of  Washington  Irving.  As 
boy  and  man  I  know  that  he  walked  under  the  trees 
that  still  remain  by  the  side  of  the  river,  and  here  he 
dreamed  and  wrote  of  ancient  Dutch  voyagers,  of  hob- 
goblins and  ghosts  of  pirates,  and  likewise  of  every- 
thing that  was  sweet  and  lovely  in  nature.  When  he 
wished  to  retire  from  the  clamor  and  bustle  of  the 
City  of  New  York,  where  fashion  then  had  pushed  its 
way  far  out  into  the  purlieus  of  Bleecker  and  Great 
Jones  streets,  and  was  even  dreaming  of  turning  the 
wild  waste  at  Fourteenth  Street,  that  stretched  irregu- 
larly between  the  Bloomingdale  Road  and  the  Bowery 
(as  it  was  then  known)  into  Union  Square,  he  came 
up  to  the  summer  home  of  the  elder  John  Jacob  Astor, 
on  Hell  Gate,  for  rest  from  what  he  called  the  "  irk- 
some fagging  of  my  pen,"  or  for  planning  and  writing 
new  books,  and,  as  in  every  place  which  he  visited,  he 
has  left  here  the  pleasant  impress  of  his  personality. 

It  was  the  fashion  of  his  day  to  look  upon  Mr. 
Astor  as  a  man  whose  only  object  of  devotion  in  life 


43°  MY  SUMMER   ACRE 

was  the  mighty  dollar.  He  had  amassed  a  fortune 
which  was  considered  colossal,  and  there  were  many 
to  envy  him  and  to  detract  from  his  credit ;  many 
who  chose  to  forget  that  had  not  John  Jacob  Astor 
and  Stephen  Girard  come  forward  with  their  dollars 
to  help  the  country  in  its  last  war  with  Great  Britain, 
there  would  have  been  no  powder  for  American  can- 
non and  no  balls  in  American  muskets.  But  most 
of  all,  I  have  honored  Mr.  Astor  for  the  reason  that 
Washington  Irving  esteemed  him.  It  is  a  compara- 
tively easy  matter  to  bequeath  a  slice  of  one's  fortune 
to  found  a  public  library,  but  a  thousand  times  more 
difficult  to  acquire  the  friendship  of  such  a  man  as 
Irving;  and  that  the  latter  had  a  cordial  admiration 
for  the  great  merchant  is  evinced  in  many  of  his  let- 
ters. It  was  because  of  the  personal  cordiality  which 
existed  between  them  that  Irving  found  it  so  pleasant 
to  be  a  guest  for  weeks  at  a  time  at  his  country-seat, 
as  well  as  to  be  a  frequent  and  familiar  visitor  at  Mr. 
Astor's  city  home,  which  then  stood  on  Broadway, 
upon  the  site  of  the  present  Astor  House. 

In  a  letter  to  his  brother  Peter,  bearing  date  Sep- 
tember 25,  1835,  Washington  Irving  writes:  "  For  up- 
ward of  a  month  past  I  have  been  quartered  at  Hell 
Gate  with  Mr.  Astor,  and  I  have  not  had  so  quiet  and 
delightful  a  nest  since  I  have  been  in  America.  He 
has  a  spacious  and  well-built  house,  with  a  lawn  in 
front  of  it  and  a  garden  in  the  rear.  The  lawn  sweeps 
down  to  the  water-edge,  and  full  in  front  of  the  house 
is  the  little  strait  of  Hell  Gate,  which  forms  a  con- 
stantly moving  picture."  Here  Mr.  Astor  kept  what 
his  guest  calls  "  a  kind  of  bachelor  hall,"  the  only  other 
member  of  the  family  being  his  grandson,  Charles 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  43! 

Astor  Bristed,  then  a  boy  of  fourteen,  who  afterwards 
inherited  the  place.  Later,  Mr.  Irving  goes  on  to  say: 
"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  sweet  and  delightful  I  have 
found  this  retreat ;  pure  air,  agreeable  scenery,  a  spa- 
cious house,  profound  quiet,  and  perfect  command  of 
my  time  and  self.  The  consequence  is  that  I  have 
written  more  since  I  have  been  here  than  I  have  ever 
done  in  the  same  space  of  time."  Two  weeks  later 
he  writes  to  the  same  brother  that  he  has  "  promised 
old  Mr.  Astor  to  return  to  his  rural  retreat  at  Hell 
Gate,  and  shall  go  out  there  to-day."  In  another  let- 
ter, written  on  Christmas  Day,  he  says  that  Mr.  Astor 
does  everything  in  his  power  to  render  his  stay  agree- 
able, "  or  rather,  he  takes  the  true  way,  by  leaving  us 
complete  masters  of  ourselves  and  our  time."  The 
reason  he  uses  the  plural  number  is  that  his  nephew, 
Pierre  M.  Irving,  was  with  him,  engaged  under  his 
supervision  in  digging  out  the  material  for  his  great 
work  Astoria,  which  had  been  taken  up  at  Mr.  Astor's 
request  and  prepared  in  his  Hell  Gate  mansion  for 
publication.  The  early  part  of  the  next  year,  1836, 
found  Mr.  Irving  still  hard  at  work  in  "  that  admira- 
ble place  for  literary  occupation,"  Mr.  Astor's  "  coun- 
try retreat  opposite  Hell  Gate,"  and  there  he  was  still 
busy  in  February,  "  giving  my  last  handling  to  the 
Astor  work.  It  is  this  handling  which,  like  the 
touching  and  retouching  of  a  picture,  gives  the  rich- 
est effects."  And  it  was  while  he  was  giving  this  ex- 
quisite setting  to  his  rare  ancl  masterly  pictures  of 
wild  life  on  the  Pacific  that  the  great  American  mas- 
ter of  letters  was  from  time  to  time  a  welcome  visitor 
across  this  worn  and  faded  threshold. 

Other  homes  in  the  neighborhood  made  him  wel- 


432 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


come,  as  they  had  done  before.  During  the  War  of 
1812,  in  which,  by- the -way,  Washington  Irving  did 
service  on  the  staff  of  Governor  Tompkins,  and  earned 
the  truly  American  title  of  colonel,  which  he  made 
haste  to  drop,  he  was  a  guest  at  the  rural  home  of 
the  Lefferts,  near  the  present  Ninety-first  Street  and 


THE  GRACIE   HOUSE 


Third  Avenue — a  house  which  is  still  standing.  In 
January,  1813,  he  writes:  "Mr.  Gracie  has  moved  into 
his  new  house,  and  I  find  a  very  warm  reception  at 
the  fireside.  Their  country-seat  was  one  of  my  strong- 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  433 

holds  last  summer,  as  I  lived  in  its  vicinity.  It  is  a 
charming,  warm-hearted  family,  and  the  old  gentleman 
has  the  soul  of  a  prince."  Could  praise  go  further  ? 
Yet  it  was  deserved,  I  am  sure.  Archibald  Gracie 
was  one  of  New  York's  great  merchants,  and  Oliver 
Wolcott  said  of  him  :  "  He  was  one  of  the  excellent 
of  the  earth — actively  liberal,  intelligent,  seeking  and 
rejoicing  in  occasions  to  do  good."  Josiah  Quincy, 
who  was  entertained  by  him  at  his  country-seat  on 
the  East  River,  opposite  Hell  Gate,  writes  of  the 
place  as  beautiful  beyond  description,  and  says :  "  The 
mansion  is  elegant,  in  the  modern  style,  and  the  grounds 
laid  out  with  taste  in  gardens."  The  house  stood — 
and  still  stands  in  an  excellent  state  of  preservation — 
on  the  East  River,  at  Horn's  Hook  (sometimes  called 
Grade's  Point  and  Rhinelander's  Point),  at  the  foot  of 
Eighty-ninth  Street.  It  still  looks  out  upon  the  whirl- 
ing, foaming  waters  of  Hell  Gate  ;  its  lawn  still  stretch- 
es to  the  river;  huge  elms  yet  shade  its  ample  porches, 
and  it  is  a  landmark  yet  to  those  who  navigate  the 
three  channels  of  the  Gate ;  but  it  long  since  passed  into 
the  hands  of  strangers,  and  its  present  possessors  may 
not  know  or  care  what  ghosts  of  footsteps — all  unfor- 
gotten  by  fame  or  tradition  —  still  linger  regretfully 
about  its  halls. 

I  hear  at  the  door  the  step  of  the  old  colonel,  and 
I  know  he  will  drag  me  from  my  books  to  take  what 
he  calls  the  medicine  of  fresh  air  and  sunshine.  He 
asks  me  what  I  have  been  writing  about,  and  when  I 
have  read  him  a  page  or  two,  he  exclaims,  with  charm- 
ing frankness,  "  Nonsense  ;  why  don't  you  tell  of  Gen- 
eral Scott's  dinner  at  the  Gracie  homestead,  and  of 

Commodore  Chauncey's  country-box  just  above  here, 
28 


434  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

and  put  a  little  soldiering  and  fighting  in  your  letters. 
I  don't  think  much  of  steel-pens  or  goose-quills,  either, 
for  that  matter.  If  I  had  sixteen  sons  I  would  put 
them  all  into  the  army  —  every  one,  sir  —  and  make 
them  fight  for  bread  and  their  country.  I  would,  by 
—by  Nebuchadnezzar,  sir !" 

I  thanked  Nebuchadnezzar  for  coming  in  at  this 
crisis  and  purring  his  approval  of  my  visitor,  but  I 
could  not  resist  the  chance  to  fire  a  shot.  As  he  sat 
down  and  took  the  cat  in  his  lap  and  stroked  its  yel- 
low coat,  and  did  it  gently  with  a  touch  that  showed 
a  tender  and  deep  humanity  in  his  heart,  I  said, 
"  What  a  pity  that  your  grandson  should  be  a  parson. 
I  must  warn  Nellie  against  putting  her  trust  in  any- 
thing but  a  soldier!" 

Nellie  had  entered  the  room  without  my  seeing  her, 
and,  as  she  laid  her  hand  upon  his  arm,  her  face  was 
rosy  and  his  was  scarlet.  He  put  the  cat  down  gen- 
tly, lifted  a  wrathful  finger,  and,  with  time  only  to  ex- 
claim, "  Felix,  I — "  was  conveyed  away  in  safety  by 
my  daughter. 

The  cat  and  I  had  the  laugh  to  ourselves.  Nellie 
and  the  old  colonel  think  that  I  know  nothing  about 
the  young  minister  and  her  ladyship.  I  would  like  to 
question  Nebuchadnezzar,  as  I  think  he  knows  more 
about  it  than  I  can  guess. 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  435 


CHAPTER  IX 

UNSOLVED  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE — THE  OLD  POST-ROAD  AND  ITS  HELL 
GATE  BRANCHES — HOMES  OF  MERCHANT  PRINCES — MANHATTAN'S 
BIGGEST  TREE 

THE  old  colonel  advises  me  to  buy  a  tub  and  sun 
myself  in  it  during  these  early  days  of  autumn.  He 
found  me  this  morning  a  perplexed  philosopher.  I 
had  been  troubled  by  the  unsolved  problems  of  life. 
My  opposite  neighbor,  name  and  nativity  unknown, 
who  lives  in  a  shabby  little  frame-house,  always  runs 
to  his  door  when  he  hears  the  sturdy  step  of  Bob,  the 
postman,  turn  the  corner,  and  hails  him  as  he  passes 
with  an  inquiry  for  letters.  Nobody  thinks  of  writing 
to  him.  He  has  had  but  one  letter  this  year,  and  yet 
he  would  as  soon  think  of  omitting  his  breakfast  as  of 
letting  this  ceremonial  of  inquiry  pass.  Why  he  does 
it  is  a  problem  which  puzzles  me.  I  put  it  to  the 
postman,  and  he  figured  upon  it  thoughtfully  for  a 
moment  and  then  gave  it  up ;  but  he  also  gave  it  to 
me  as  a  bit  of  his  experience  that  the  people  on  his 
route  who  seldom  received  a  letter  were  always  the 
most  anxious  to  learn  whether  the  mail  had  brought 
anything  for  them. 

My  cheery  friend,  the  postman,  found  me  sitting  on 
the  front  porch,  under  the  shade  of  the  honeysuckles 
that  threw  a  shadow  on  half  the  porch  and  have 
clambered  up  to  the  gallery  on  the  roof,  and  singled 
out  one  missive  of  those  that  he  handed  me,  and  said, 


436  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

"  I  have  brought  you  a  real  letter,  and  no  mistake,  this 
time."  It  was  even  so.  Four  sheets  of  letter-paper, 
closely  written,  and  from  a  friend  who  is  the  busiest 
man  of  my  acquaintance,  though  his  years  are  almost 
threescore  and  ten.  It  was  a  charming  epistle,  full  of 
news,  and  pervaded  by  his  own  personality.  But  he 
also  gave  me  a  problem  to  solve.  He  had  been  able 
to  take  a  vacation  of  but  three  weeks,  and  on  his  re- 
turn it  had  taken  him  three  weeks  more  to  put  his 
books  and  papers  to  rights  again.  Why  is  it  so?  he 
asked  me ;  and  then  he  made  the  assertion  that  if  he 
had  been  absent  for  three  months  it  would  have  been 
the  work  of  three  months  afterwards  to  get  everything 
settled  down  again,  and  he  left  me  to  puzzle  over  the 
problem.  Rejecting  the  tub  idea,  the  old  colonel  and 
I  took  our  chairs  out  upon  the  back  porch,  with  the 
swift  waters  leaping  and  sparkling  at  our  feet,  twenty 
feet  below  the  top  of  the  bluff,  and  a  late  cat-bird  call- 
ing in  the  branches  overhead,  and  talked  over  the  fact 
that  we  had  learned  so  much  and  knew  so  little.  We 
spoke,  as  we  so  often  do  now,  of  our  childhood,  of  our 
school-days,  and  our  playmates ;  thinking  silently  as 
we  spoke,  perhaps,  of  another  childhood,  a  school  yet 
to  come,  and  renewed  companionships  that  had  been 
broken  in  the  past.  Our  talk  recalled  a  picture  of  the 
past  that  had  become  almost  forgotten. 

It  was  of  my  grandmother — the  picture  in  my  li- 
brary of  a  dainty  maiden  in  clinging  robes  and  baby 
waist,  and  with  great  sunny  curls  heaped  high  above 
her  unwrinkled  forehead,  is  her  portrait  painted  in  the 
day  of  her  belleship  —  in  the  later  years  of  her  life, 
when  her  cap  was  her  care  and  her  knitting  was  her 
comfort.  "  Felix/'  she  said,  one  day,  as  she  stopped 


HELL   GATE   FERRY 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  439 

knitting  to  smooth  down  the  long  lace  lappets  of  her 
cap, "  I  have  been  thinking  while  you  were  at  school 
how  little  we  learn  here  in  threescore  years,  and  yet 
when  we  are  children  we  expect  to  learn  everything 
by  the  time  we  are  grown  up.  But  we'll  know  it  all 
by-and-by,  that's  one  comfort,  and  for  a  little  while  it 
doesn't  signify.'* 

It  was  in  the  days  when  young  ladies  were  habited 
as  my  grandmother's  portrait  presents  them,  and  gen- 
tlemen of  fashion  wore  the  collars  of  their  coats  tucked 
up  under  their  ears  and  swathed  their  necks  in  volumi- 
nous silk  or  muslin  neckerchiefs,  when  among  the  el- 
ders the  queue  was  going  slowly  out  of  fashion,  and 
knee-breeches  struggled  to  hold  their  own  against  the 
more  democratic  trousers,  that  the  glory  of  the  Hell 
Gate  colony  was  at  its  height.  The  members  had 
their  stately  homes  in  the  city,  to  and  from  which 
they  travelled  in  the  chaise,  or  lumbering  coach  of 
the  period,  or,  as  the  gentlemen  usually  preferred,  on 
horseback. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  write  the  Hell  Gate  Ferry 
was  at  the  foot  of  Eighty-sixth  Street,  opposite  the 
extreme  northern  end  of  Blackwell's  Island,  and  there 
was  a  road  to  it  that  started  from  a  point  just  south 
of  Eighty-third  Street.  Below  this,  at  Seventy-ninth 
Street  and  Third  Avenue,  was  what  was  known  as 
Odellville  in  my  boyhood.  It  answered  to  the  defini- 
tion of  a  point,  being  without  position  or  magnitude. 
West  of  the  road  was  Odell's  grocery  store  —  a  two- 
story  frame  building,  which  yet  stands,  though  hum- 
bled by  its  brick  and  stone  neighbors.  The  cottage 
of  "  Granny  "  Gates,  a  niece  of  Gen.  Horatio  Gates, 
200  feet  distant,  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  post-road 


440  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

which  here  passes  between  Second  and  Third  avenues, 
has  been  swept  away ;  but  Pye's  Folly,  a  row  of  brick 
houses  erected  thirty  years  before  this  time,  which 
proved  a  ruinous  investment,  has  survived  its  project- 
or, though  it  has  grown  aged  and  shabby  of  aspect. 
Connected  with  the  main  roadway  to  the  ferry  were  a 
number  of  branch  roads,  mostly  shaded  by  rows  of 
trees,  among  which  the  Lombardy  poplar  was  popu- 
lar, which  led  to  the  country-seats  of  the  gentlemen 
who  always  spoke  of  their  places  as  being  on  Hell 
Gate.  Commodore  Chauncey's  villa  was  south  of 
Eighty -fifth  Street,  and  between  Avenues  A  and  B; 
John  Jacob  Astor's  on  the  south  side  of  Eighty-eighth 
Street,  his  farm  extending  between  Avenues  A  and  B 
and  Eighty-seventh  and  Eighty-ninth  streets;  Archi- 
bald Grade's  house  was  east  of  Avenue  B,  and  north 
of  Eighty-eighth  Street ;  Nathaniel  Prime's  comforta- 
ble homestead  lay  north  of  Eighty-ninth  Street,  and 
west  of  Avenue  A;  and  the  farm-house  of  William 
Rhinelander  stood  north  of  Ninety-first  Street,  over- 
looking the  bay,  which  then  swept  far  in  shore  from 
Horn's  Hook,  and  looking  out  upon  Mill  Rock,  and 
the  Frying  Pan. 

Two  of  these  houses  yet  remain,  and  yesterday  I 
made  a  pilgrimage  to  their  thresholds,  and  then  sought 
the  sites  of  those  others  which  had  been  swept  to  de- 
struction by  the  tidal  wave  .of  improvement.  The 
besom  of  the  speculator  is  implacable.  In  a  few 
weeks  the  old  house  in  which  I  live  will  be  torn  down, 
and  modern  bricks  fashioned  into  a  tenement -house 
will  replace  it.  When  I  went  into  Riverside  Park 
yesterday  one  of  its  guardians  told  me  that  the  old 
brick  mansion  which  stands  in  its  enclosure,  note- 


MY  SUMMER   ACRE 


441 


worthy  for  its  great  hall  ending  in  an  entrance- door 
at  either  side,  is  doomed.  Thomas  Addis  Emmet 
used  to  spend  his  summers  here,  and  with  Wash- 
ington Irving  was 
a  frequent  guest 
at  the  house  of 
Archibald  Gracie, 
where  not  infre-. 
quently  fifty  guests 
sat  down  to  din- 
ner. The  site  of 
John  Jacob  Astor's 
home  is  desolate. 
A  few  aged  and 
half-  withered 
trees,  some  grassy 
mounds  and  strag- 
gling bushes,  give 
token  that  the 
place  was  once  in- 
habited, but  that  is 
all.  It  is  a  pity, 
too.  The  house — 
I  have  a  picture  of 
it  before  me — is  a 
square  frame  build- 
ing, with  an  exten- 
sion in  the  rear. 
The  great  door  of 
the  hall  had  a  win-  MONUMENT  TO  THOMAS  ADDIS  EMMET 
dow  of  correspond- 
ing size  above  it,  and  two  windows  on  either  side.  The 
wide,  low  porch  was  supported  by  four  pillars,  which 


442  MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

reached  to  the  roof,  and  the  latter,  peaked  at  the  cen- 
tre, had  a  single  dormer-window  in  front.  The  lawn  is 
open  in  front  towards  the  water,  but  on  either  side,  and 
at  the  rear,  are  trees  of  various  kinds  —  evergreens, 
beeches,  and  elms.  There  is  no  pretension  about  the 
house  or  lands,  neither  the  display  of  the  landscape-gar- 
dener or  the  architect,  but  the  house  looks  like  a  fitting 
nest  for  the  man  who  dreamed  Astoria  and  penned  it. 
The  fact  is  that  the  gentlemen  of  high-collared  coats 
built  for  comfort  and  hospitality.  Two  blocks  away 
is  the  country  home  of  Nathaniel  Prime,  the  great 
banker  of  the  firm  of  Prime,  Ward  &  Sands,  who 
married  a  daughter  of  Comfort  Sands,  and  when  in 
town  lived  in  state  at  No.  I  Broadway.  His  country- 
seat,  which  faces  to  the  north-east,  looking  across 
Hell  Gate  and  up  the  East  River,  is  a  model  of  a  sub- 
urban homestead.  Its  broad  porches  at  the  front, 
side,  and  rear  were  made  to  shelter  its  great  hall  and 
wide  rooms  from  the  sun  and  the  winds.  The  house, 
which  is  two  stories  in  height,  but  is  made  massive  in 
appearance  by  its  abutting  wings,  is  in  an  excellent 
state  of  preservation,  and  is  now  one  of  the  buildings 
occupied  by  St.  Joseph's  Orphan  Asylum.  Yesterday, 
as  I  passed,  a  score  of  merry  lads  were  running  across 
the  lawn,  which  stands  high  above  the  grade  of  the 
street,  shouting  at  their  play.  As  I  walked  slowly  up 
the  street  and  looked  back  at  the  peak  of  the  roof, 
marking  the  old-fashioned  arched  window  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  garret  and  the  quarter  windows  on  either 
side,  I  could  have  wished  myself  an  orphan  under  its 
shelter — if  only  they  would  let  me  bring  my  pipe,  two 
of  the  cats,  and  The  Boy ! 

Though  the  rural  homestead  of  Archibald   Gracie 


I   AND   3   BROADWAY   IN   1828 


still  stands  in  much  of  its  primitive  strength  and 
comeliness,  it  may  disappear  at  any  time.  The  firm 
of  Archibald  Gracie  &  Co.  exists  as  it  did  a  hundred 
years  ago,  but  the  house  in  which  Louis  Philippe, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  Tom  Moore,  and  Washington 
Irving  were  guests  of  its  founder  long  since  passed 
into  other  hands.  Its  surroundings  are  not  attractive, 
and  a  high  board  fence  is  an  unpleasant  feature,  but 
its  grounds  are  still  so  spacious,  and  the  memories  of 
those  who  were  sheltered  under  its  roof  are  yet  so 
tangible,  that  it  is  worth  a  walk  on  foot  from  the  Bat- 
tery to  Horn's  Hook  to  view  it  in  the  golden  haze  of 
these  autumnal  days  and  hang  the  picture  up  in  mem- 
ory's gallery.  Beautiful  for  situation,  it  stands  on  a 


444  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

cape  that  juts  out  into  the  river,  and  its  windows 
command  a  view  of  Hell  Gate  and  its  rocks,  the  isl- 
ands in  the  upper  channel,  Long  Island's  wooded 
shores,  the  forests  that  hang  above  Oak  Point,  the 
growing,  throbbing  streets  of  Harlem ;  a  hundred 
flashing  craft  are  spread  before  the  eye,  and  nearer  at 
hand  is  a  lawn  that  yet  has  the  look  of  velvet,  in 
which  seven  great  trees  and  a  score  of  lesser  ones 
stand  sentinel.  Supreme  among  the  group,  a  mon- 
arch no  less  by  right  of  his  majestic  growth  than  be- 
cause of  his  two  centuries  of  years,  towers  a  mighty 
cotton-wood,  which  measures  fourteen  feet  in  circum- 
ference at  the  height  of  thirty -six  inches  from  the 
ground,  and  lifts  itself  up  fifty  feet  from  the  earth  be- 
fore it  sends  out  its  branches.  Its  enormous  dome, 
symmetrical  and  beautiful,  makes  a  landmark  which 
every  man  who  sails  the  waters  of  the  East  River 
would  miss  and  mourn  if  storm  uprooted  it  or  axe 
were  laid  at  its  root.  The  house — large,  roomy,  fenced 
round  with  wide  porches  that  take  away  from  its 
size  rather  than  add  to  it — looks  as  if  it  might  readily 
accommodate  a  hundred  guests,  and  were  prepared 
to-day  to  welcome  them.  Eighty  years  ago  it  was 
the  home  of  an  American  prince,  whose  fleet  of  clip- 
pers with  their  red  and  white  signals  was  known  in 
every  sea — only  a  merchant,  but  hospitable  as  a  king. 
It  seems  strange  to  read  in  a  city  newspaper  of  1809, 
published  when  Mobile  was  a  Spanish  settlement,  and 
there  was  but  one  steamboat  in  all  the  world,  and  fash- 
ionable New  York  dined  at  three  o'clock,  the  an- 
nouncement that  Archibald  Gracie,  of  Mobile,  has 
taken  into  partnership  his  son  Archibald,  and  that  the 
business  will  be  conducted  under  their  joint  names. 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  445 

In  the  son's  veins,  through  his  maternal  ancestry, 
mingled  the  blood  of  the  last  colonial  Governor  of 
Connecticut,  and  of  Matthew  Rogers,  who  owned  and 
occupied  the  unique  building  at  No.  8  State  Street, 
facing  the  Battery. 

I  sit  here  thinking  of  those  trees  on  historic  Horn's 
Hook — trees  which  stood  there  when,  in  1760,  Jacob 
Walton,  a  colonial  merchant  prince,  brought  hither  to 
his  elegant  country-seat  his  fair  young  bride,  Polly 
Cruger,  daughter  of  Henry  Cruger,  the  colleague  of 
Burke  as  Member  of  Parliament  from  Bristol ;  when, 
fifteen  years  later,  Gen.  Charles  Lee  ordered  the  house 
to  be  vacated,  and  made  it  his  own  headquarters ; 
when,  a  year  later,  the  British  moved  up  the  Long 
Island  shore  to  Hallett's  Point,  after  the  disastrous 
battle  on  Brooklyn  Heights,  and  opened  a  heavy 
artillery  fire  upon  the  American  works  and  garrison 
at  Horn's  Hook,  and  which  have  witnessed  all  the 
changes  since.  How  long  have  these  mute  witnesses 
of  the  country's  glory  and  the  city's  growth  to  live? 
It  was  unpardonable  stupidity  that  did  not  seize  this 
choicest  of  all  points  on  the  East  River  for  a  public 
park ;  it  will  be  the  height  of  cruelty  to  slay  these 
surviving  monarchs  of  the  primeval  woods  that  once 
covered  this  part  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan !  Who 
will  dare  wield  the  axe  to  kill  this  king  of  all  our  trees 
— the  last  of  the  giant  cotton-woods?  In  answer  to 
this  question  comes  a  memory  of  the  first  school  that 
I  attended,  when  but  a  mite  of  a  boy.  The  teacher 
was  scholarly,  but  eccentric.  He  should  have  been  a 
college  professor,  but  was  such  a  child  himself  that  he 
taught  a  primary  school.  One  of  the  larger  boys  had 
cut  into  and  partly  girdled  a  maple  in  front  of  the 


446 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


school -house,  and  how  the  boy  did  catch  it!  The 
single  sentence  of  reproof  has  always  remained  with 
me :  "  The  boy  that  would  injure  a  shade-tree  would 
kill  a  man."  I  used  to  make  light  of  the  old  peda- 
gogue's verdict ;  now  I  am  afraid  that  I  believe  it. 
The  old  colonel,  into  whose  protecting  lap  Martha 
Washington  has  climbed,  vows  that  he  will  slay  with 
his  own  hand  the  wretch  who  dares  thrust  his  steel 
into  the  great  Gracie  tree. 


A  DUTCH   HOUSE 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  447 


CHAPTER    X 

A  GLANCE  AT  HARLEM — THE  LESSON  OF  THE  WOODPECKER — A  GREAT 
MILL-POND  THAT  HAS  DISAPPEARED  —  THE  OTTER  TRACK  AND 
BENSON'S  CREEK — GRIST-MILLS  ON  THIRD  AVENUE— OLD  DUTCH 
HOMES  AND  NAMES 

THERE  was  a  woodpecker  at  work  on  the  big 
cherry-tree  this  morning.  For  an  hour  he  hammered 
away,  with  an  industry  which  ought  to  have  brought 
him  a  good  breakfast.  His  figure  flashed  from  one 
side  of  the  trunk  to  the  other  with  such  rapidity  that 
we  watched  with  wonder  to  see  where  the  silver  fret- 
ting of  his  wings  and  the  sheen  of  his  glossy  black 
back  would  next  show  themselves.  A  busy  little  fel- 
low be,  who  paid  no  attention  to  the  idle  crew  that 
gazed  at  him  in  delight,  but  thrust  his  bill  into  worm- 
holes  with  an  accuracy  that  never  made  a  mistake.  It 
was  my  daughter  Nellie  who  descried  him  first.  She 
took  me  by  the  button-hole  as  I  pushed  my  chair 
back  from  the  breakfast  -  table,  marched  me  out  on 
fhe  porch,  and,  pointing  to  the  woodpecker,  bade  me 
behold  my  prototype.  "  See,"  she  said, "  how  he  delves 
into  dark  places  and  digs  out  their  hidden  treasures, 
happy  when  he  has  brought  to  light  the  secrets  that 
are  hidden  there."  I  pleaded  guilty,  with  a  smile, 
and  took  off  my  hat  to  the  speckled  delver. 

Yes,  mine  has  been  the  life  of  the  little  bird  this 
summer,  and  I  am  loath  to  leave  my  ancient  home- 
stead and  pause  from  its  antiquarian  studies.  An- 


44$  •          MY  SUMMER  ACRE 

other  year  and  the  house  that  has  known  fourscore 
years  of  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  life  will  be  levelled 
to  the  ground,  the  axe  will  be  hurled  against  the  heart 
of  these  old  trees,  my  garden  will  disappear,  and  on 
the  real  estate  map  of  the  city  a  red  parallelogram 
will  take  the  place  of  the  yellow  one  of  to-day,  to  de- 
note to  the  inquirer  that  a  row  of  brick  tenements  oc- 
cupies the  site  of  the  quaint  old  frame-house  by  the 
river.  So  I  linger,  while  it  is  yet  possible  and  while 
the  golden  glory  of  these  autumnal  days  makes  life 
under  the  scarlet  leaves  of  tree  and  vine  a  luxury, 
over  the  landscape  whose  forgotten  beauties  still  exist 
for  me.  I  trace  out  the  brooks  and  ponds,  headlands 
and  meadows,  country-seats  and  farm-houses,  hills  and 
bits  of  forest  of  the  olden  time,  and  for  the  moment 
they  are  real.  I  call  up  the  sturdy  old  Dutch  farmer 
in  voluminous  waistcoats  and  leathern  breeches,  the 
bewigged  and  belaced  English  colonist  who  brought 
with  him  the  roystering  ways  of  the  mother-coiwitry, 
and  made  the  valley  of  the  Harlem  resound  with  the 
cry  of  the  fox-hunt ;  the  soldiers  in  the  scarlet  of  the 
King  and  the  patriot  battalions  in  buff  and  blue ;  the 
merchant  princes  and  jurists  and  men  of  leisure,  whose 
country  residences  once  crowned  every  hillock  in  view; 
the  mill-pond  and  creek  in  the  distance ;  the  little  ru- 
ral village,  and  its  whitewashed  church  surmounted  by 
a  gilded  weathercock;  the  stage-coach,  horse -ferry, 
and  rustic  tavern — all  these  are  hammered  out  by  the 
bill  of  the  literary  woodpecker.  It  is  not  much  in 
the  eyes  of  a  financier,  perhaps,  but  then  he  would 
not  think  much  of  the  busy  little  bird  either,  and 
the  latter,  though  not  so  large  as  the  hawk  or  a 
buzzard,  is  as  merry  as  the  day  is  long.  What  more 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  449 

could  he  ask?  He  has  his  wings  and  his  twig,  and  he 
finds  his  worm  when  he  wants  it.  For  anything  be- 
yond, he  is  wise  enough  not  to  bother  his  head. 

It  is  always  worth  while  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  a 
hole  and  find  the  nugget  that  lies  there.  I  have  been 
looking  up  the  meaning  of  the  old  Dutch  designation 
"  hook,"  which  occurs  so  frequently  on  the  ancient 
maps  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  and  which  yet  sur- 
vives in  Tubby  Hook  on  the  North  River.  That  pro- 
found work,  entitled  the  Goot  Woordenboeck,  published 
at  Rotterdam  in  1658,  says  that  the  word  "  hoeck,"  or 
"  hook,"  signifies  a  nook,  a  corner,  or  an  angle.  The 
ancient  maps  of  the  Hell  Gate  district  locate  Hoorn's 
Hook  at  the  foot  of  Eighty -ninth  Street,  and  Van 
Kenlen's  Hook  at  the  southern  bank  and  outlet  of 
the  Harlem  River.  The  latter  took  its  name  from 
the  family  who  pre-empted  and  occupied  the  200  acres 
south  of  the  Harlem  and  extending  to  Fifth  Avenue. 
Although  a  landed  proprietor  by  the  name  of  Horn 
purchased  a  portion  of  the  property  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Eighty-ninth  Street,  the  locality  did  not  de- 
rive its  title  from  him,  but,  like  New  Amsterdam  and 
New  Haarlem,  it  was  baptized  in  memory  of  Hoorn 
in  Holland,  where  Siebert  Claesen,  a  wealthy  burgher 
of  New  Amsterdam  in  the  days  of  Governor  Peter 
Stuyvesant,  had  passed  many  pleasant  days,  and  whose 
fragrant  memory  he  desired  to  perpetuate. 

As  early  as  1636  the  pioneers  of  Dutch  civilization 
made  their  appearance  in  the  fertile  plains  at  the  foot 
of  the  rocky  height  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of 
Slang  Berge,  or  Snake  Hill,  now  called  Mount  Morris. 
There  had  been  an  Indian  village  at  this  point,  and 
the  Indians  had  given  to  the  land  the  musical  name 


4$0  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

Muscoota,  signifying  the  flats  or  meadows,  and  the 
river  was  designated  by  the  same  title.  Isaac  de 
Rasieres,  who  was  secretary  of  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company  in  1628,  gives  the  first  written  description 
of  the  locality,  and  says  that  while  towards  Hell  Gate 
and  to  the  westward  it  was  rocky  and  full  of  trees, 
towards  the  north  end  it  had  good  bottom-lands. 
The  mind  of  the  Hollander  was  instinctively  drawn 
to  what  the  early  colonists  called  the  flats  of  the  Isl- 
and of  Manhattan,  and  the  region  was  all  the  more 
attractive  because  it  was  bordered  by  salt  meadows 
traversed  at  many  points  by  creeks  and  kills.  Under 
the  shadow  of  Snake  Hill  they  laid  out  a  village.  Its 
present  spires  and  shipping,  its  railways  and  colossal 
structures  of  brick  and  stone,  form  part  of  the  land- 
scape from  my  windows,  but  they  do  not  obliterate 
the  woods  and  fields,  the  old  Dutch  homesteads  and 
farm-houses,  the  streams  and  inlets  now  vanished  but 
upon  which  my  eyes  looked  more  than  forty  years 
ago,  and  whose  remembrance  is  as  vivid  as  the  city 
home  of  my  childhood. 

When  the  present  plan  of  city  streets  was  adopted, 
eighty  years  since,  the  eastern  post -road,  which  di- 
verged from  the  present  Third  Avenue  at  Eighty- 
third  Street  and  crossed  Fourth  Avenue  at  Eighty- 
fifth  Street,  passed  the  corner  of  Observatory  Place 
and  intersected  the  Middle  Road  at  Ninetieth  Street. 
Observatory  Place  was  intended  as  a  square  for  a 
reservoir,  and  extended  from  Eighty-ninth  to  Ninety- 
fourth  Street,  and  from  Fifth  to  Sixth  Avenue.  The 
road  then  passed  in  a  northerly  direction  between  the 
latter  avenues,  and  crossed  a  small  bridge  over  the 
head  of  Benson's  tide  mill-pond,  near  One  Hundred 


V  \ 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  453 

and  Fifth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue,  and  thence  swept 
a  little  west  of  Third  Avenue,  through  the  village  of 
Harlem,  which  was  located  between  One  Hundred 
and  Sixteenth  and  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth 
streets,  and  so  on  to  the  Harlem  River.  From  Ninety- 
second  Street  there  was  a  road  which  crossed  over  to 
Kingsbridge  Road,  striking  it  a  little  to  the  west  of 
the  present  Eighth  Avenue  at  Myer's  Corner,  about 
One  Hundred  and  Thirty-first  Street.  Another  lane, 
called  the  Harlem  Road,  passed  from  the  village  over 
the  Harlem  flat  to  the  north  of  Snake  Hill,  and  made 
a  junction  with  the  Kingsbridge  Road  at  Myer's  Cor- 
ner. These  roads  were  all  laid  out  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  at  which  time  also  the  diverging  road  to 
Hoorn's  Hook  was  cut  through  the  woods  that  then 
lined  the  banks  of  the  river.  The  land  must  have 
been  exceedingly  fair  to  look  upon  then,  for  Governor 
Wouter  Van  Twiller,  who  had  laid  hands  upon  the 
Island  of  Tenkeins  opposite,  now  known  as  Ward's 
Island,  to  appropriate  it,  as  early  as  1633  pre-empted 
all  the  lands  bordering  on  Hell  Gate  Bay  which  had 
obtained  the  name  of  Otter-spoor  or  otter  track,  from 
the  number  of  otters  with  which  it  abounded. 

Through  this  tract  swept  a  creek  which  was  100 
feet  wide  at  its  mouth  and  20  feet  deep,  and  was  navi- 
gable for  half  a  mile  or  more  inland.  It  emptied  into 
Hell  Gate  Bay  near  One  Hundred  and  Seventh  Street, 
thence  stretching  westwardly  up  and  beyond  Fifth 
Avenue,  one  of  its  sources  being  in  Central  Park,  and 
the  other,  a  rippling  brook,  fed  by  crystal  springs  that 
nestled  at  the  foot  of  the  rocks  in  Morningside  Park. 
The  spring  in  Central  Park  was  known  as  "Montanye's 
fonteyn,"  and  still  exists  in  its  perennial  freshness 


454  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

The  curious  wayfarer  might  find  it  in  its  original  basin 
on  the  line  of  One  Hundred  and  Fifth  Street  and  to 
the  west  of  the  Sixth  Avenue  line,  but  the  basin  has 
been  covered  up,  and  a  hidden  pipe  leads  the  waters 
to  the  foot  of  the  hill  where,  in  a  "  hook  "  or  angle  of 
the  rocks,  it  bubbles  forth  as  merrily  as  of  old,  and 
leaps  along  its  ancient  bed  until  it  falls  into  the  waters 
of  Harlem  Lake.  Originally  known  as  Montanye's, 
the  next  century  gave  the  name  Benson's  Creek  to 
this  stream,  and  on  later  maps  it  appeared  as  Harlem 
Creek  until  obliterated  by  the  march  of  the  spade 
and  the  hod. 

The  Dutch  had  hardly  begun  to  farm  the  fertile 
glebe  of  Harlem  before  one  of  their  number  saw  the 
advantages  of  the  stream,  and  proposed  to  the  good 
burghers  to  help  him  in  building  a  bridge.  But  they 
deliberated  long,  and  doubtless  smoked  up  several 
hogsheads  of  tobacco  before  they  could  see  their  way 
clearly  to  such  a  venture.  At  last  they  seemed  to 
have  organized  a  sort  of  trust,  or  "  combine,"  in  the 
line  of  public  improvements.  Not  to  do  things  by 
halves,  they  determined  that  Harlem  should  have  a 
grist-mill,  a  tavern,  and  a  ferry,  and  they  proceeded  to 
put  the  enterprise  in  operation.  The  dam  for  the 
mill  was  built  in  1667.  It  crossed  the  creek  a  little 
to  the  west  of  Third  Avenue  at  One  Hundred  and 
Ninth  Street,  and  at  its  northern  end  stood  the  grist- 
mill. There  was  a  stone  bridge  at  Third  Avenue,  and 
another  crossed  Mill  Creek  at  One  Hundred  and 
Eleventh  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue,  the  mill-pond  ex- 
tending this  distance  back  and  giving  its  name  to  the 
principal  brook  that  fed  it.  In  1730  Derick  Benson 
became  owner  of  the  property,  having  removed  hither 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


455 


from  Greenwich  Village  —  the  Bassen  Bouwery  of 
old  Dutch  days,  where  dwelt  the  Mandevilles,  Van 
Schaicks,  Woertendykes,  and  Somerindykes  of  Hol- 
land ancestry.  For  some  years  the  mill  had  fallen 
into  disuse,  and  in  October,  1738,  the  town  granted 
permission  to  Samson  Benson,  his  brother,  to  erect  a 
mill  with  a  dam  and  dwelling-house. 


COURTNEY'S  (CLAREMONT)  FROM  HARLEM  TOWER 

During  the  War  of  the  Revolution  these  buildings, 
which  were  occupied  by  the  military,  who  had  a  for- 
tification at  Benson's  Point  (the  southern  bank  of 
the  creek,  known  later  as  Rhinelander's  Point),  were 
burned  to  the  ground.  After  the  war  was  ended 
Benjamin  Benson  built  a  new  mill  and  a  substantial 
stone  dwelling  on  the  Mill  Camp  farm,  as  it  was  then 
called.  In  1827,  when  the  Harlem  Canal  was  begun, 


456  MY    SUMMER  ACRE 

that  speculative  enterprise,  gigantic  for  those  days, 
which  was  to  unite  the  waters  of  the  Hudson  and 
East  rivers  by  a  navigable  canal  from  Benson's  Point 
to  Harlem  Cove,  now  Manhattanville,  the  mill,  a  frame 
building  three  stories  in  height,  was  taken  down,  but 
the  dwelling-house  was  spared  until  1865.  I  well  re- 
member the  canal,  with  its  stone  embankments  and 
locks,  which  was  extended  beyond  Fourth  Avenue  be- 
fore it  was  abandoned ;  and,  indeed,  the  man  of  forty 
can  recall  it,  and  picture  to  himself  how  oddly  ap- 
peared this  bit  of  costly  enterprise  that  crossed  deso- 
late marshes  and  barren  wastes  of  ground.  It  has 
disappeared  now,  and  a  busy  city  covers  up  all  trace 
of  canal  and  marsh.  The  stranger  would  never  dream 
that  the  snipe  had  so  recently  teetered  on  the  site  of 
yonder  tall  houses,  and  that  it  was  only  the  whistle  of 
the  elevated  train  that  finally  drowned  his  cry.  But 
there  are  old  men  who  remember  the  quiet  mill-pond 
and  its  overhanging  willows,  the  dusty  roadway  lined 
with  beeches  and  elms,  the  stone  bridge  and  the  salt- 
marshes  on  either  side,  and  out  towards  Hell  Gate 
Bay  and  Horn's  Hook  the  beautiful  country-seats 
which  diversified  the  landscape  of  river,  rapids,  mead- 
ows, and  islands. 

On  either  side  of  Benson's  Creek,  in  the  time  of 
which  I  write,  were  stately  country-seats  which  faced 
the  mouth  of  the  stream,  and  whose  lawns  stretched 
down  to  its  waters.  One'  of  these,  the  Bayard  house, 
still  stands  on  One  Hundred  and  Tenth  Street,  be- 
tween First  and  Second  avenues.  It  is  almost  hidden 
by  gigantic  gas-tanks  at  the  front  and  rear.  Yet  it 
still  looks  towards  the  stream  that  is  no  more,  and  has 
strangely  outlived  it.  Now,  after  nearly  a  century  of 


MY  SUMMER   ACRE  457 

life,  it  retains  much  of  its  old  look,  and  its  chimneys 
at  either  end,  its  shingled  roof,  wide  porch,  and  the 
broken  slant  of  its  galleried  roof,  proclaim  its  antiqui- 
ty. Lifted  high  above  the  street,  something  of  its 
once  magnificent  lawn  is  still  left,  and  a  cotton-wood 
and  elm,  each  seemingly  older  than  the  house  they 
guard,  stand  on  either  side  as  mute  witnesses  to  a 
splendor  that  has  been  lost  forever. 

I  do  not  know  what  name,  if  any,  this  ancient  man- 
sion bore  in  the  days  of  its  glory,  but  there  were  some 
names  emblazoned  on  the  old  Dutch  homes  of  Har- 
lem that  deserve  to  be  rescued  from  oblivion.  One 
would  not  suspect  the  Holland  tradesmen  and  naviga- 
tors of  a  tendency  to  poetry,  yet  these  sterling  old 
souls  had  it  in  their  hearts,  if  not  on  their  tongues. 
They  may  have  cheated  the  Indians,  sworn  at  the 
Yankees,  and  drunk  heavily  of  schnapps  on  the  Strand, 
but  when  they  came  back  to  their  boweries  the  spirit 
of  home  brooded  under  their  ample  vests.  Zegendal, 
"  the  vale  of  blessing,"  was  the  name  one  sturdy  set- 
tler in  Harlem  bestowed  upon  the  homestead  he  had 
made,  and  another  called  his  glebe  Vredendal,  "  the 
vale  of  repose,"  or  quiet.  It  is  a  pity  that  some  of 
these  names  could  not  have  been  preserved  ;  a  greater 
pity  still  that  the  old  Indian  names  which  the  aborigi- 
nes of  the  Island  of  Manhattan  bequeathed  us  have 
almost  passed  into  oblivion.  No  one  remembers  that 
the  Harlem  River  was  called  the  Muscoota ;  Tib- 
bett's  Brook  is  usurping  the  name  Mosholu ;  Spuy- 
ten  Duyvil  has  superseded  Schorakapok,  or  Spouting 
Spring,  and  the  land  around  Hell  Gate  Bay  no  longer 
recalls  its  Indian  designation,  Conykeekst — the  home 
of  the  rabbit.  Through  the  haze  of  these  autumnal 


458 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE 


days  I  look  out  upon  fields  on  the  farther  shore  in 
which  the  shocks  of  corn  stand  like  wigwams  of  the 
red  man.  The  corn  will  be  gathered  to-morrow,  and 
the  winds  from  the  north  will  sweep  away  the  golden 
mists  of  to-day.  I  am  very  sorry  for  the  Indian,  but, 
really,  this  beautiful  island  is  a  little  too  good  for  him, 
even  were  he  all  that  Fenimore  Cooper  has  painted 
him. 


HEAD   OVER   WINDOW   OF  THE   WALTON   HOUSE 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  459 


CHAPTER    XI 

RAMBLES  AROUND  HARLEM — IN  MY  SCHOOL-BOY  DAYS — EARLY  SET- 
TLERS AND  THEIR  HOMES — AN  INTERIOR  VIEW — THE  STAGE-COACH 
ERA — A  VILLAGE  ALDERMAN  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

"  FOR  what  is  the  City  of  Haarlem  famous?" 
"  For  its  great  organ — the  largest  in  the  world." 
These  words  were  certainly  not  spoken.  They 
came  back  to  me  from  the  mists  of  half  a  century 
ago,  and  were  the  echo  of  my  thoughts^  Master  Felix 
and  I  were  sitting  in  the  library.  He  was  studying 
his  geography  lesson,  and  I  was  reading  about  the 
pioneers  who  established  a  "  Nieuw  Haarlem  "  on  the 
flats  of  Manhattan.  There  may  have  been  an  unseen 
connection  between  these  two  facts,  but  I  maintain 
that  no  sound  was  audible.  The  echoed  question  and 
answer  brought  before  me  a  little  urchin  in  round- 
about and  trousers,  with  a  ruffle  around  his  neck, 
standing  with  his  class  in  a  room  which  occupied  the 
entire  front  of  the  second  story  in  a  little  brick  house 
on  Franklin  Street.  Desks  for  a  score  of  boys  were 
strung  closely  together  against  the  front  and  sides  of 
the  room.  At  the  rear  was  a  mahogany  table,  behind 
which  sat  the  teacher  in  his  arm-chair.  On  the  table 
were  books,  bunches  of  quill-pens,  and  sand-boxes — for 
the  steel-pen  was  an  object  of  prejudice  and  blotting- 
paper  was  unknown — together  with  forfeited  apples, 
cakes,  fly-boxes  constructed  of  paper,  balls,  and  mar- 


460  MY    SUMMER   ACRE 

bles,  and  certain  flat  rulers  and  rounded  rattans,  which 
were  used  interchangeably,  according  as  discipline  was 
administered  to  the  palm  of  the  hand  or  other  more 
robust  portions  of  the  juvenile  anatomy.  In  those 
days  there  was  no  revised  version  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  our  teacher,  who  was  a  son  of  the  granite  hills  of 
New  Hampshire,  and  likewise  superintendent  of  the 
Sunday-school  attached  to  the  Presbyterian  Church 
on  Murray  Street,  was  a  devout  believer  in  King  Sol- 
omon's advice  about  sparing  the  rod  and  spoiling  the 
child. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  note  the  love  for  their  city  which 
lies  in  the  hearts  of  the  old  sons  of  New  York,  and 
which  seems  not  only  to  survive  many  other  emo- 
tions, but  to  grow  deeper  with  advancing  years.  More 
letters  with  a  word  of  sympathy  in  his  pursuits  have 
come  to  Felix  Oldboy  than  he  has  had  time  to  ac- 
knowledge, and  most  grateful  among  these  have  been 
kindly  messages  from  some  of  my  old  school-fellows. 
The  latest  of  these  came  from  the  Union  Club,  written 
by  a  gentleman  of  scholarly  tastes  and  civic  eminence, 
whom  every  New  Yorker  would  recognize  were  I  to 
write  his  name,  in  which  he  says :  "  I  entered  the 
school  of  J.  J.  Greenough,  as  a  student,  in  May,  1839, 
more  than  fifty  years  ago,  then  at  No.  399  Greenwich 
Street,  near  Jay,  on  the  east  side  of  the  street,  and  re- 
mained three  years,  when  I  entered  the  university 
grammar-school.  In  May,  1840,  Mr.  Greenough  re- 
moved his  school  to  No.  18  Walker  Street,  and  the 
next  year  to  Franklin  Street.  Of  those  who  were 
students  at  the  school  during  my  term  I  know  of  only 
three  living :  George  C.  Wetmore,  Theodore  Wet- 
more,  and  George  De  Forest  Lord.  I  have  many 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  463 

pleasant  recollections  of  those  school -days,  it  being 
the  first  boys'  school  that  I  attended.  I  saw  much  of 
Mr.  Greenough  after  I  left  his  school;  he  always  felt 
very  kindly  towards  me,  and  on  my  departure  pre- 
sented me  with  a  recommendation  to  a  new  school, 
handsomely  engrossed,  which  I  have  preserved.  He 
also  gave  me  his  portrait  in  oil,  taken  many  years  be- 
fore, which  I  now  have.  This  I  looked  at  this  morn- 
ing to  refresh  my  memory  of  the  old  days."  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  read  such  a  letter.  As  I  hold  it  in  my 
hand  and  look  back  to  the  past,  the  rod  of  which  I 
stood  in  awe  changes  into  an  olive-branch  in  the  hand 
of  my  ancient  teacher,  and  his  shade  smiles  as  pleas- 
antly upon  me  as  if  I  had  never  gleefully  plotted  his 
discomfiture. 

But,  with  the  garrulousness  of  a  seventeenth  -  cen- 
tury preacher,  whom  I  shall  presently  have  need  to 
quote,  I  am  wandering  from  my  text.  Harlem  was 
always  to  me,  in  my  younger  days,  the  land  of  delight- 
ful mystery,  the  ultima  thule  of  the  Island  of  Man- 
hattan, a  region  of  hill -side  and  forest,  of  rocky  de- 
files and  marshy  meadows,  of  brooks,  in  whose  head 
waters  the  sunfish  and  perch  abounded  and  at  whose 
mouths  the  succulent  flounder  could  be  caught,  of 
pleasant  shade  under  the  cotton-wood,  oak,  and  tulip 
trees,  of  buttercups,  daisies,  and  gentians,  of  farm  and 
village  life  as  contrasted  with  city  roar  and  rumble. 
A  picnic  in  this  region  was  the  acme  of  school-boy 
pleasure,  especially  if  it  included  a  trip  on  the  rail- 
road, which  slowly  crept  through  the  deep  passes  cut 
through  the  rocks  at  Yorkville,  stopping  at  Harsen's 
cross-road  and  at  the  middle  road  to  drop  its  pas- 
sengers, and  landing,  finally,  after  what  seemed  a  long 


464  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

ride,  at  lonely  Harlem.  The  nineteenth  century  has 
not  gone  out  without  witnessing  vestibule  trains,  with 
modern  hotel  accommodations  on  wheels ;  but  this 
luxury  of  travel  will  never  bring  me  the  same  amount 
of  pleasure  that  I  used  to  extract  from  the  barracks 
on  wheels  of  forty  years  ago,  the  horse-hair  seats,  nar- 
row windows  with  small  panes  of  glass,  and  flat,  un- 
ventilated  roofs.  Uncomfortable  though  they  were, 
they  were  to  me  as  the  enchanted  carpet  of  the  Ara- 
bian Nights,  and  no  similar  amount  of  enjoyment 
could  be  purchased  elsewhere  for  a  shilling. 

History  represents  the  early  Dutch  settlers  as  a 
phlegmatic  race  who  had  always  an  eye  to  the  main 
chance,  but  I  shall  never  hesitate  to  express  the  opin- 
ion that  they  had  also  an  eye  to  the  beautiful,  even  if 
poetry  was  made  secondary  to  pelf.  It  must  also  be 
remembered  that  many  of  the  men  who  first  came  to 
New  Amsterdam  were  Huguenot  refugees,  who  had 
kept  up,  during  their  temporary  exile  in  the  lowlands 
of  Holland,  a  vivid  remembrance  .of  the  mountains 
and  meadows  of  la  belle  France.  The  pioneer  settler 
in  Harlem,  Henri  De  Forest — who  dwelt  but  one  short 
year  in  the  home  he  had  built  under  the  shadow  of 
Snake  Hill,  and  then  was  called  to  enter  the  house 
not  made  with  hands — was  a  native  of  France,  and  of 
the  reformed  faith,  and  several  of  his  colleagues  had 
the  same  ancestry.  I  do  not  wonder  at  their  enthu- 
siasm for  the  place  they  selected  for  their  new  colony. 
If  they  climbed  Snake  Hill  and  looked  abroad,  I  do 
not  wonder  that  they  were  enchanted  with  the  pros- 
pect. Three  rivers  glanced  in  the  sunshine  before 
them ;  mountain,  forest,  and  plain  were  parted  by 
small  ponds  and  innumerable  brooks,  and  at  their 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  465 

feet,  sheltered  by  two  ranges  of  hills  from  the  blasts 
of  the  north-westerly  winds,  lay  a  rich  alluvial  belt 
that  promised  a  hundred-fold  return  to  their  labor  as 
husbandmen.  They  felt  that  it  was  good  to  be  there; 
and  building  better  than  they  knew,  they  hewed  out 
the  rafters  that  were  to  be  the  foundations  of  the 
magnificent  new  city  of  to-day  that  covers  the  sites  of 
their  farms  of  the  olden  time. 

Yesterday  I  climbed  Mount  Morris,  and  changed  as 
the  scene  has  become  by  the  improvements  which  in 
two  centuries  have  blotted  out  much  of  the  ancient 
loveliness  of  the  landscape,  I  felt  like  challenging  any 
other  city  in  the  world  to  produce  its  equal.  There 
sparkled  the  East  River  and  Hell  Gate,  with  their 
setting  of  emerald  islands  and  wooded  banks ;  there 
the  waters  of  the  Harlem,  spanned  by  aqueduct  and 
bridge,  wound  along  until  they  seemed  to  sink  into 
the  base  of  the  distant,  purple  Palisades ;  there  again 
rose  the  wooded  heights  of  Fordham  on  one  side  and 
of  Inwood  and  Fort  Washington  on  the  other ;  and  the 
rocky  ramparts  of  Morningside  Park,  with  the  teem- 
ing city  below,  while  the  hills  and  trees  and  meadows 
of  Central  Park  broke  the  monotony  of  bricks  and 
mortar  and  made  a  pleasant  resting-place  for  the  eye. 
All  around  me,  at  my  feet,  rose  the  magnificent  public 
buildings  and  homes  of  a  city  that  had  grown  up  in  a 
decade — built  as  by  the  magic  of  a  day — the  city  of 
Nieuw  Haarlem;  indeed,  but  a  city  of  which  the  timid 
projectors  of  the  village  on  the  flats  never  dreamed. 
Yet  let  us  not  be  surprised  that  they  did  not  dream 
of  it,  when  the  man  who  projected  and  built  the  Erie 
Canal — De  Witt  Clinton,  New  York's  greatest  mayor 
— deemed  it  an  improbability  that  the  land  at  this 


466  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

end  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan  could  be  built  up  in 
city  fashion  during  the  present  century. 

The  garrulous  preacher  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
to  whom  reference  has  been  made,  was  a  schismatic 
of  the  Labadist  persuasion,  who,  like  other  fanatics, 
believed  that  all  the  salt  of  the  earth  was  confined 
to  his  mite  of  a  sect.  He  made  one  of  his  visits  to 
Haarlem  in  the  October  days  of  1679,  and  he  de- 
scribes the  Dutch  minister,  who  sometimes  preached 
there,  and  whom  he  did  not  fellowship  in  doctrine,  as 
"  a  thick,  corpulent  person,  with  a  red,  bloated  face, 
and  of  a  very  slabbering  speech."  If  we  are  to  credit 
this  apostle  of  heresy,  the  people  of  the  village  spent 
much  of  their  time  in  drinking  rum  and  carousing; 
but  even  this  narrow-minded  man  could  not  help  be- 
ing impressed  by  the  natural  beauty  of  his  surround- 
ings. "A  little  eastward  of  Nieuw.  Haarlem,"  he 
writes  in  his  journal,  "  there  are  two  ridges  of  very 
high  rocks,  with  a  considerable  space  between  them, 
displaying  themselves  very  majestically,  and  inviting 
all  men  to  acknowledge  in  them  the  majesty,  gran- 
deur, power,  and  glory  of  the  Creator,  who  has  im- 
pressed such  marks  upon  them."  And  he  rounds  off 
his  description  with  the  assertion  that  the  grapes 
were  as  good  as  any  he  had  tasted  "  in  the  Father- 
land," and  that  "  the  peaches  were  the  best  he  had 
ever  eaten." 

A  later  traveller,  writing  a  quarter  of  a  century  after- 
wards, gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  interior  of  one  of  the 
homes  of  Harlem,  and,  being  a  woman,  her  eyes  ob- 
serve narrowly.  "The  inside  of  them"  (meaning  the 
houses),  she  writes,  "  are  neat  to  admiration ;  the 
wooden  work,  for  only  the  walls  are  plastered  and 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  467 

the  sumers  [the  central  beam]  and  gist  [joist]  are 
plained  and  kept  very  white  scowr'd,  as  so  is  all  the 
partitions  made  of  Bord.  The  fireplaces  have  no 
Jambs,  as  ours  have,  but  the  backs  run  flush  with  the 
walls,  and  the  Hearth  is  of  Tyles  and  is  as  farr  out 
into  the  Room  at  the  Ends  as  before  the  fire,  which 
is  generally  Five  foot  in  the  lower  rooms ;  and  the 
piece  over  where  the  mantle  tree  should  be  is  made 
as  ours  with  Joyner's  work  and,  as  I  suppose,  is  fast- 
ened to  the  iron  rodds  inside.  The  House  where  the 
Vendue  was  had  Chimney  Corners  like  ours,  and  they 
and  the  Hearth  were  laid  with  the  finest  tile  that  I 
ever  see,  and  the  staircases  laid  with  white  tile,  which 
is  ever  clean  and  so  are  the  walls  of  the  Kitchen  which 
had  a  Brick  floor."  The  tiles  in  the  staircase  were  set 
into  the  wall,  forming  a  continuous  border  to  the  up- 
per line  of  the  stairs,  as  can  still  be  seen  in  some  of 
the  old  Dutch  houses  in  the  interior,  and  notably  in 
the  old  Coeyman  homestead  on  the  bank  of  the  upper 
Hudson. 

I  have  said  that  the  growth  of  New  York  has  far 
outstripped  even  the  most  sanguine  expectations  of 
De  Witt  Clinton,  and  I  read  this  in  the  report  made 
by  the  commissioners  he  appointed  to  lay  out  the 
streets  and  roads  of  the  city  under  the  act  of  1807 — 
Gouverneur  Morris,  Simeon  De  Witt,  and  John  Ruth- 
erford. In  laying  out  the  streets  they  made  provision 
for  a  parade-ground  for  the  militia,  to  extend  from 
Twenty-third  to  Thirty-fourth  Street,  and  from  Third 
to  Seventh  Avenue,  as  well  as  for  other  smaller  parks  ;* 

*It  was  at  the  suggestion  of  Hon.  James  Harper,  when  Mayor  of 
New  York,  and  under  his  influence,  that  Madison  Square  was  laid  out 
as  it  now  exists.— L. 


468  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

and  in  their  report  to  Mayor  Clinton,  in  1809,  they 
apologize  for  doing  so,  and  add  :  "  It  may  be  a  sub- 
ject of  merriment  that  the  commissioners  have  pro- 
vided space  for  a  greater  population  than  is  gathered 
at  any  spot  this  side  of  China.  They  have,  in  this  re- 
spect, been  governed  by  the  shape  of  the  ground.  It 
is  not  improbable  that  considerable  numbers  may  be 
collected  at  Harlem  before  the  high  hills  to  the  south- 
ward of  it  shall  be  built  upon  as  a  city ;  and  it  is  im- 
probable that,  for  centuries  to  come,  the  grounds  north 
of  Harlem  flat  will  be  covered  with  houses.  To  have 
come  short  of  the  extent  laid  out  might  therefore 
have  defeated  just  expectations;  and  to  have  gone 
further  might  have  furnished  material  to  the  perni- 


MCGOWAN'S  PASS  IN  1860 


cious  spirit  of  speculation."  The  ghosts  of  the  highly 
respected  citizens  who  penned  these  words  must  be 
mightily  dumfounded  at  the  city  that  stretches  up  from 
the  Battery  to  the  Harlem  River,  leaps  across  that 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  469 

stream  on  wings  of  steam,  and  is  rapidly  striding  tow- 
ards the  classic  Bronx. 

As  designed  by  Mr.  John  Randel,  the  city  surveyor 
under  Clinton,  Harlem  was  to  have  two  parks.  One 
of  these,  Harlem  Square,  was  laid  out  between  One 
Hundred  and  Seventeenth  and  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-first  streets  and  Sixth  and  Seventh  avenues, 
on  the  common  lands  of  the  city.  The  other,  to  be 
known  as  Harlem  Marsh  Square,  was  laid  out  on  the 
commissioners'  plan  from  One  Hundred  and  Sixth  to 
One  Hundred  and  Ninth  Street,  and  from  Fifth  Ave- 
nue to  the  East  River  at  Benson's  Point.  It  con- 
tained nearly  seventy  acres,  and  until  the  canal  at  this 
point  was  projected,  was  considered  the  best  and 
most  healthful  means  of  disposing  of  Harlem  Creek 
and  its  adjacent  marshes,  whenever  the  growth  of  the 
village  should  demand  the  obliteration  of  the  mill-dam 
and  stream.  And  hereabouts,  I  must  not  omit  to  say, 
was  the  home  of  the  McGowns,  who  gave  their  name 
(written  in  history  as  McGowan)  to  the  famous  rocky 
pass,  still  traceable  in  the  upper  part  of  Central  Park, 
through  which  the  troops  of  Washington  sent  the  red- 
coats flying  at  the  battle  of  Harlem  Plains.  Mr.  An- 
drew McGown,  the  famous  old  Harlem  Democrat,  fa- 
ther of  Judge  A  J  McGown,  was  fond  of  sailing  on 
the  waters  of  the  East  River,  and  kept  his  yacht  at 
this  residence,  which  stood  at  the  foot  of  One  Hundred 
and  Ninth  Street.  He  had  a  canal  cut  through  the 
marshes  to  the  foot  of  his  lawn,  to  enable  him  to  have 
his  yacht  brought  up  close  to  the  house,  and  it  re- 
mained open  until  quite  recently,  when  it  had  to  be 
filled  in  to  sustain  the  onward  march  of  improvement. 
The  McGown  family  originally  came  from  Scotland, 


WORKS  AT  MCGOWAN'S  PASS,  WAR  OF  1812 

and  settled  in  Harlem  a  number  of  generations  ago. 
In  the  days  of  '76  Daniel  McGown,  father  of  Andrew 
McGown,  resided  at  the  homestead  in  McGown's 
Pass,  about  where  Mount  St.  Vincent  Hotel  now  is — 
at  One  Hundred  and  Sixth  Street  and  Sixth  Avenue. 
After  the  gallant  action  on  Harlem  Plains,  where  the 
Americans  for  two  days  successively  drove  back  the 
British  troops,  sending  them  whirling  below  Yorkville, 
Lord  Howe  moved  up  his  entire  army  from  the  city 
to  retrieve  the  disaster.  The  advance-guard  was  the 
Hessian  brigade.  They  stopped  at  the  McGown  home- 
stead, and  found  that  the  only  male  person  at  home 
was  this  child  of  twelve  years — Andrew  McGown — 
whose  father  was  in  Washington's  army.  The  boy 
was  pressed  into  service  to  guide  the  column  of  mer- 
cenaries against  the  American  camp.  Quick-witted 
and  patriotic,  he  gave  no  sign  that  he  was  other  than 
pleased,  but  he  led  the  Hessians  a  merry  dance  over 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  471 

hill  and  marsh  and  meadow,  down  to  the  North  River, 
near  the  present  Riverside  Park,  while  the  American 
forces  were  leisurely  taking  themselves  out  of  the 
way  and  camping  behind  their  intrenchments  at  Fort 
Washington.  A  boy  that  day  was  the  salvation  of 
his  country. 

It  was  by  such  a  spirit  as  this  little  lad's  that  inde- 
pendence was  achieved  and  the  corner-stone  of  the 
country's  prosperity  was  laid.  We  need  a  little  more 
of  it  in  these  days  of  Irish-American,  German-Ameri- 
can, and  other  un-American  mixtures,  when  it  is  made 
a  political  crime  to  call  one's  self  an-  American  sim- 
ply, or  to  act  or  vote  as  such,  and  when  an  eloquent 
imported  preacher  proclaims  that  there  are  no  Ameri- 
cans except  the  Indians.  The  boys  and  the  men  who 
fought  in  the  Revolution  were  the  fathers  of  the  race, 
and  the  women  who  suffered  in  their  absence,  and 
sustained  these  heroes  by  their  patriotism,  were  the 
mothers.  When  they  are  forgotten,  or  when  we  cease 
to  honor  them,  it  will  be  near  the  hour  of  sunset  in 
our  land. 

Fifty  or  sixty  years  ago,  when  the  only  passenger 
conveyance  between  Harlem  and  New  York  was  by 
Dingledine's  stage,  which  left  the  corner  of  One  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty -fifth  Street  and  Third  Avenue  at 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  reached  Park  Row, 
opposite  the  City  Hall,  shortly  before  ten  o'clock, 
returning  at  3  P.M.,  the  stage  used  to  carry  up  and 
down  half  a  dozen  gentlemen,  then  young,  but  after- 
wards distinguished.  Among  them  were  Judge  D.  P. 
Ingraham,  grandson  of  Daniel  Phoenix,  an  eminent 
and  wealthy  citizen,  who  was  City  Treasurer,  father 
of  the  present  Judge  Ingraham  ;  Edgar  Ketchum,  af- 


472  MY    SUMMER   ACRE 

terwards  Register  in  Bankruptcy;  Alderman  Charles 
Henry  Hall,  Daniel  Fanshaw,  printer  to  the  American 
Tract  Society,  and  Isaac  Adriance.  They  have  passed 
away,  full  of  honors  as  of  years,  leaving  precious  and 
fragrant  remembrance.  The  fare  on  the  Dingledine 
line  was  twenty-five  cents.  A  few  years  later  the  stages 
found  that  it  paid  to  make  hourly  trips.  At  first  they 
used  to  leave  from  No.  21  Bowery,  which  was  a  sort 
of  country -hotel,  with  stables  in  the  rear,  but  after- 
wards they  resumed  their  old  stand  at  Park  Row. 
The  fare  at  that  time,  as  I  well  remember,  was  a 


BULL'S   HEAD   TAVERN,   ON    THE   SITE   OF   THE   BOWERY  THEATRE 

shilling,  and  the  ride  usually  gave  the  passengers  exer- 
cise enough  for  a  week. 

The  first  street  paved  in  Harlem  was  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-ninth  Street,  and  this  improvement  was 
effected  in  1832.  The  pavement,  with  flagged  side- 


ROSE   STREET   SUGAR-HOUSE 
[As  it  appeared  in  1892,  just  before  it  was  demolished] 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  475 

walks,  extended  from  Third  to  Eighth  Avenue.  How 
much  of  a  public  improvement  this  was  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that  at  the  time  there  were  no 
paved  streets  in  New  York  north  of  Clinton  Place  and 
St.  Mark's  Place,  except  a  few  in  Greenwich  Village. 
It  was  due  to  the  efforts  of  Alderman  Hall,  who  also 
caused  both  sides  of  the  street  to  be  set  out  with  elms, 
many  of  which,  and  some  of  gigantic  stature,  still  re- 
main to  show  how  good  deeds  survive  our  dust.  The 
city  had  men  for  aldermen  then.  During  the  fearful 
cholera  season  of  1832  it  became  the  duty  of  Alder- 
man Hall,  with  several  of  his  colleagues,  who  with  him- 
self constituted  the  Board  of  Health,  to  visit  the  quar- 
antine on  Staten  Island.  It  was  a  perilous  duty,  but 
they  did  not  hesitate.  Within  a  fortnight  all  but 
Alderman  Hall  had  died  of  the  epidemic.  Two  of 
the  alderman's  brothers — Jonathan  Prescott  Hall  and 
David  P.  Hall  —  were  famous  lawyers  of  the  olden 
time,  and  the  three  names  deserve  a  place  in  the  city's 
pantheon  when  it  shall  be  built. 

The  old  cotton -wood  on  the  Gracie  lawn  is  the 
largest  tree  on  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  and  I  had 
thought  it  the  largest  in  the  city  limits,  but  opposite, 
a  lonely  sentinel  on  the  marshy  point  of  Ward's  Isl- 
and, is  a  venerable  cotton-wood  that  is  seventeen  feet 
in  girth  at  a  point  three  feet  from  the  ground.  Who 
planted  these  giants?  It  was  the  Laird  of  Dumbie- 
dikes  who,  when  he  lay  dying,  said  to  his  son  and 
heir :  "  Jock,  when  ye  hae  naething  else  to  do,  ye  may 
be  aye  sticking  in  a  tree ;  it  will  be  growing,  Jock, 
when  ye're  sleeping."  And  how  much  of  human  nat- 
ure was  there  in  his  next  words  :  "  My  father  tauld  me 
sae,  forty  years  sin',  but  I  ne'er  fand  time  to  mind 


476  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

him."  Our  Harlem  alderman  found  the  time,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  that  as  he  now  looks  up  into  the 
branches  of  the  tree  of  life  by  the  side  of  that  other 
river,  he  thinks  of  the  little  elms  he  stuck  into  the 
ground  hard  by  our  river's  waves,  and  is  glad  that  he 
planted  them. 


TO      BE      SOLD, 

ATVendue,  onTuefday  the  I2th  inft, 
at  the  Houfe  of  Mr  John  Williams* 
near  Mr  Lifpenard's :  A  Leafc  from  Tri- 
nit/Church,  for  Old  John's  Land,  for  12 
Years  to  come .  ? * 

AN    OLD    ADVERTISEMENT 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  477 


CHAPTER   XII 

INDIAN  RAIDS  AND  MASSACRES — A  ROLL  OF  HONOR — THE  OLD  DUTCH 
CHURCH — ST.  ANDREW'S  PARISH — DAYS  OF  PESTILENCE  AND  DEATH 

MY  comrade  and  companion,  Nebuchadnezzar,  the 
great  yellow  cat  who  is  the  pride  of  the  household, 
went  on  the  war-path  this  morning.  From  the  library 
window  I  watched  his  noiseless,  stealthy  tread  ;  his  am- 
bush behind  the  lilac  roots  ;  his  patient,  moveless  gaze, 
and  then  his  sudden  spring  upon  the  prey ;  his  up- 
lifted claws,  the  torture  of  his  victim,  and  the  final 
process  of  scalping,  which  left  the  rat  without  a  head. 
Presently  the  victor  strutted  proudly  in,  with  tail  up- 
lifted like  a  banner  and  a  grim  smile  of  satisfaction 
about  the  jaws,  and  then  I  felt  him  rubbing  his  sleek 
body  against  my  legs  with  a  purring  hymn  of  triumph. 
It  was  a  genuine  picture  from  nature,  and,  as  it  was 
unfolded,  I  could  readily  see  whence  the  red  man  had 
drawn  his  habit  of  patient  endurance  and  methods  of 
warfare.  Had  I  been  a  Brahmin,  I  might  have  be- 
held in  Nebuchadnezzar  the  transmigrated  soul  of 
Massasoit  or  Philip  of  Pokanoket. 

I  had  intended  to  sit  down  and  write  of  the  streets 
and  people  of  Harlem  village,  but  my  cat  has  set  me 
thinking  of  the  days  when  the  Indians  were  a  dream 
of  terror  to  the  early  settlers  under  the  shadow  of 
Snake  Hill  and  upon  Hell  Gate  Bay,  and  of  the 
doughty  pioneers  who  returned  from  work  to  find 


4?8  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

their  homes  on  the  "  otter  tract  "  a  heap  of  ashes,  or 
were  slain,  together  with  wife  and  children,  on  the 
lands  now  traversed  by  railways  and  thickly  sown 
with  enormous  buildings.  If  the  men  of  those  dark 
days,  every  one  of  whom  seemed  to  have  the  soul  of  a 
king  in  his  rugged  breast,  could  awake,  what  would  be 
their  astonishment  to  see  the  city  of  palaces  that  has 
risen  from  the  isolated  village  cottages  of  a  decade  or 
two  ago,  and  what  would  stout  Nicholas  de  Meyer  say 
to  the  luxurious  homes  that  surround  Mount  Morris 
Park,  in  one  of  which  his  lineal  descendant,  Mr.  Joseph 
O.  Brown,  the  sage  of  Harlem,  has  his  abode?  As 
little  dreamed  the  parents  of  the  first  white  child  born 
in  New  Amsterdam,  in  their  thatched  cottage  hard  by 
the  Battery,  that  its  lineal  descendant,  Judge  Charles 
H.  Truax,  would  live  in  a  home  in  Harlem  fit  for  a 
nobleman,  when  that  distant  village  would  be  almost 
the  centre  of  the  city,  and  would  honor  the  family 
name  upon  the  bench  of  justice.  Time  has  seen  many 
changes,  but  few  like  those  which  have  built  up  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  the  western  world. 

It  is  passing  strange  that  so  little  is  known  of  the 
Indians  who  inhabited  the  Island  of  Manhattan  and 
of  their  relations  to  the  early  settlers.  Fenimore 
Cooper  has  immortalized  in  romance  the  Delawares 
and  Iroquois  of  the  interior  regions  of  the  colony, 
but  no  poet  or  writer^  of  romance  has  risen  to  em- 
blazon the  courage  of  the  settlers  who  had  to  battle 
for  their  homes  in  these  fertile  glades ;  and  the  his- 
torian has  passed  lightly  over  the  bloody  deeds  by 
which  the  savage  took  vengeance  for  his  wrongs.  In 
reading  the  pages  of  history,  one  would  be  led  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Dutch  colonists,  after  purchasing  the 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  479 

island  for  a  few  dollars,  with  sundry  trinkets  and  bot- 
tles of  veritable  Dutch  fire-water  thrown  in,  had  been 
permitted  to  take  quiet  possession  of  the  land  and 
push  on  their  settlements  without  hinderance.  The 
truth  was  otherwise.  The  Indians  had  sold  the  land, 
but  reserved  to  themselves  the  right  of  hunting  at 
will  and  pursuing  the  game  everywhere.  It  was  their 
means  of  livelihood,  and  when  in  time  it  came  to  in- 
terfere with  the  farmer's  methods  of  sowing  and  gath- 
ering his  crops,  there  was  trouble.  Their  principal  en- 
campment was  at  Wickquaskeek,  or  "  the  birch-bark 
country,"  in  the  forests  which  stretched  down  from 
Inwood  to  Fort  Washington,  and  from  this  camp 
they  took  their  right  name.  A  haughty  and  proud 
race,  they  kept  much  aloof,  and  had  given  no  trouble 
until  Director  Kieft  attempted  to  levy  a  tax  of  corn, 
furs,  and  wampum  upon  them.  It  was  a  most  impolitic 
measure,  and  as  Montagne,  one  of  the  Harlem  colo- 
nists, said  :  "  A  bridge  has  been  built,  over  which  war 
will  soon  stalk  through  the  land."  Hostilities  followed, 
and  forty  Indians  were  massacred  one  night  in  cold 
blood  at  Corlear's  Hook,  some  of  whom  were  friendly 
Mareekawaks,  from  Brooklyn.  Retaliation  came  next. 
The  farms  at  Harlem  were  devastated  ;  Kuyter's  bow- 
erie  v/as  burned  to  the  ground  while  the  guard  of  sol- 
diers were  asleep  in  the  cellar  or  underground  hut, 
and  the  settlers  fled  for  protection  to  New  Amster- 
dam. A  temporary  truce  was  patched  up,  and  then 
hostilities  broke  out  afresh.  Pieter  Beeck,  who  owned 
the  patent  at  Horn's  Hook — where  the  Gracie  house 
now  stands — was  surprised  while  at  work  on  his  farm, 
and,  with  his  three  workmen,  was  cruelly  murdered. 
Still  the  Indians  were  refused  compensation  for  their 


480  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

rights  and  privileges,  and  they  announced  their  deter- 
mination to  expel  the  whites  from  the  northern  end 
of  the  island.  A  foray  of  three  days  ensued  in  Sep- 
tember, 1655,  during  which  fifty  settlers  were  slain,  and 
over  one  hundred,  mostly  women  and  children,  were 
carried  into  captivity.  Hordes  of  armed  savages  swept 
over  the  flats.  Jochen  Zuyter  was  slain  at  his  bow- 
erie ;  later  his  wife  fell  a  victim  to  the  savages.  Cor- 
nelis  Swits  and  Tobias  Teunissen  were  killed,  their 
homes  on  the  flats  and  their  crops  destroyed,  their 
families  carried  into  captivity,  and  all  the  neighboring 
settlements  were  swept  away.  The  fury  of  the  red 
men  led  them  also  to  cross  the  East  River  and  carry 
desolation  up  and  down  the  Long  Island  shore.  It 
was  a  scene  of  wide-spread  devastation,  such  as  sick- 
ened the  hearts  of  the  soldiers  sent  up  from  New 
Amsterdam  to  bury  the  dead  and  protect  the  living, 
and  it  went  on  growing  in  blood  and  blackness  until 
the  director  and  council  at  New  Amsterdam  passed 
an  ordinance,  in  1656,  requiring  isolated  farmers  to  re- 
move their  families  to  the  village,  and  to  go  out  only 
with  armed  parties  to  till  their  lands  and  gather  their 
crops. 

England  has  her  Abbey  Battle  Roll,  on  which  her 
proudest  peer  is  prouder  yet  to  find  the  family  name 
written,  and  Harlem  should  keep  in  similar  remem- 
brance the  names  of  the  stout-hearted  pioneers,  who 
battled  to  the  death  for  the  very  existence  of  the  an- 
cient village.  The  story  of  their  struggle  of  twenty 
years  for  existence,  though  it  ended  in  failure,  is  a  rare 
record  of  heroism,  and  deserves  more  than  the  little 
glimpse  of  sunshine  which  my  pen  lets  in  upon  it. 
Upon  this  roll  of  honor,  in  addition  to  those  whom  I 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  483 

have  named,  I  should  enter  the  names  of  the  De  For- 
ests, Van  Keulens,  Delavalls,  Waldrons  (headed  by 
stout  old  Resolved  Waldron,  the  baron),  Vermilyes, 
Tourneurs,  Dyckmans,  Kortrights,  Delamaters,  Bus- 
sings,  and  every  pioneer  who  could  be  raised  up  from 
the  dim  but  glorious  past  of  local  history.  Some 
day  the  world  around  us  will  wake  to  the  knowledge 
that  there  is  a  vein  of  heroism  which  we  now  tread 
underfoot,  but  that  will  be  richly  worth  unfolding  to 
the  light.  The  men  who  succeed  are  the  men  who 
make  history,  but  it  is  the  men  who  do  not  succeed 
that  furnish  most  of  the  romance  to  life.  It  was  the 
pioneer  whose  fertile  lands  had  been  devastated  by 
the  savage,  and  whose  hearth-stone  had  been  drenched 
in  the  blood  of  women  and  children  and  their  defend- 
ers, that  made  the  future  village  of  Harlem  possible, 
and  determined  the  authorities  at  New  Amsterdam 
to  make  it  an  armed  outpost  of  this  city,  alike  against 
the  wily  savage  and  the  unscrupulous  Yankee. 

The  village  was  laid  out  on  Church  Lane,  whose 
grassy  paths  and  air  of  rural  repose,  overhanging  elms 
and  adjacent  gardens,  are  still  kept  in  the  memories 
of  some  old  inhabitants  of  the  plain  as  an  exquisite 
picture  which  can  never  be  forgotten.  The  road  fol- 
lowed an  old  Indian  trail  to  the  Harlem  River  and 
the  ferry  at  Morrisania.  If  one  should  draw  a  straight 
line  from  the  north-eastern  corner  of  One  Hundred 
and  Nineteenth  Street  and  Lexington  Avenue  to  the 
north-east  corner  of  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-third 
Street  and  Second  Avenue,  and  thence  to  the  river, 
it  would  pass  through  the  centre  of  the  old  Harlem 
Road  or  Church  Lane.  Half  a  block  from  the  point 
of  departure  it  crossed  the  Eastern  Post -road,  into 


4^4  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

which  at  One  Hundred  and  Twenty -first  Street  and 
Sylvan  Place  came  the  old  Kingsbridge  Road  from 
the  north-west.  The  meeting  of  these  roads  made 
what  was  known  to  the  village  folks  as  the  Five  Cor- 
ners, where  a  market  was  established  in  1807,  and 
where  again  in  1840  a  law  was  passed  for  the  erection 
of  a  market-house  and  for  the  purposes  of  a  public 
square.  The  market  was  a  failure,  the  city  was  neg- 
lectful, and  for  years  this  land,  occupying  the  half 
block  between  Sylvan  Place  and  Third  Avenue,  was 
taken  possession  of  by  a  "  squatter,"  who  paid  no  rent 
to  the  city. 

In  Sylvan  Place  the  antiquarian  will  find  the  only 
surviving  traces  of  the  old  Eastern  Post-road,  which 
took  up  part  of  the  little  street  and  a  large  slice  of  the 
block  to  the  east  of  it.  Old  Church  Lane  and  the 
Kingsbridge  Road  also  touched  upon  either  corner  of 
the  little  street,  but  one  may  see  in  the  trees  which 
stand  in  its  roadway,  and  reach  their  lines  out  into  the 
blocks  adjoining,  plain  traces  of  the  double  line  of  elms, 
silver  poplars,  and  willows  through  which  the  old  stage- 
coach to  Boston  used  to  plod  its  way.  Along  the  Har- 
lem Road,  from  One  Hundred  and  Twentieth  to  One 
Hundred  and  Twenty-third  Street,  and  reaching  back 
six  hundred  feet  or  more  to  the  north-west,  lay  the 
lands  of  the  Reformed  Dutch  Church,  and  at  One  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty-first  Street  and  Third  Avenue  stood 
the  church  which  I  remember  as  a  boy,  and  which  has 
since  been  moved  to  a  rear  lot,  and  now  faces  upon 
the  street  instead  of  the  avenue.  This  was  built  in 
1829.  The  original  church  edifice  stood  at  the  other 
end  of  Church  Lane,  at  One  Hundred  and  Twenty- 
fifth  Street,  about  midway  between  Second  and  Third 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  487 

avenues,  where  was  also  the  old  cemetery.  The  first 
structure  was  of  wood;  the  second,  erected  in  1685, 
was  of  stone,  and  aspired  to  the  dignity  of  an  arched 
door,  steeple,  and  weathercock.  William  Hellaker, 
of  New  York,  contracted  to  build  it  for  the  sum  of 
750  guilders  in  wheat.  According  to  the  prevalent 
Dutch  custom  of  building  houses,  ships,  and  public 
buildings  as  broad  as  they  were  long,  in  accordance 
with  the  average  physical  proportions  of  the  genuine 
Knickerbocker,  the  contract  says :  "  The  size  of  the 
church  across  either  way  is  thirty-six  Dutch  feet." 
There  is  no  doubt  that  it  appeared  a  thing  of  beauty 
to  all  village  eyes,  when  the  gilded  vane  or  weather- 
cock, with  the  glittering  ball  on  which  it  was  perched, 
and  for  which  John  Delamater  had  been  credited  nine 
florins,  was  proudly  raised  to  the  top  of  the  steeple, 
and  left  there  to  decide  for  once  and  always  any 
dispute  as  to  the  way  of  the  wind.  Among  the  sub- 
scribers I  note  the  names  of  Tourneur,  Dyckman, 
Kortright,  Bogert,  Van  Brevoort,  and  Geresolveert  (Re- 
solved) Waldron,  for  100  florins  each — every  man  of 
note  in  the  colony  for  some  substantial  sum.  The 
total  cost,  in  addition  to  work  and  material  furnished 
by  the  people,  was  2600  guilders. 

Everything  went  well  in  the  new  church  until  the 
Leisler  troubles  of  1690,  when  the  Harlem  people  nat- 
urally took  sides  with  the  martyred  Dutch  governor, 
who  had  been  executed  for  his  fidelity  to  the  rights 
of  the  people,  and  they  cut  loose  from  the  brethren 
of  New  Amsterdam  to  such  an  extent  that  Dominie 
Selyns  wrote  to  the  classis  of  Old  Amsterdam  that  the 
Harlem  people  had  run  away  with  the  idea  that  they 
could  live  without  ministers  or  sacraments.  The  breach 


488  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

was  soon  healed,  however,  and  the  church  grew  strong 
and  prosperous.  Until  the  organization  of  St.  Mary's 
Episcopal  Congregation  at  Manhattanville,  the  Re- 
formed Dutch  Church  at  Harlem  was  the  only  church 
of  any  denomination  within  the  limits  of  Harlem, 
which,  as  a  separate  village  organization,  comprised 
the  upper  half  of  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  and  held 
to  its  boundary-lines  (from  the  foot  of  Seventy-second 
Street  on  the  East  River  to  the  foot  of  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-fifth  Street  on  the  Hudson)  with  great 
tenacity  in  all  questions  which  concerned  itself  and 
the  city  at  the  other  end  of  the  island. 

There  was  a  sturdy  independence  about  these  an- 
cient Dutch  and  Huguenot  pioneers,  which  occasion- 
ally came  to  the  surface  in  their  church  legislation. 
At  one  time,  in  order  to  pay  the  salary  of  Jan  la 
Montagne,  voorleser  (that  is,  foresinger,  who  led  the 
singing  and  read  the  Bible  in  the  church)  and  school- 
master, the  magistrates  laid  a  tax  upon  the  land.  But 
it  came  to  nothing.  The  people  objected  to  being 
taxed  for  religious  purposes.  They  had  enough  of 
that  in  their  old  homes,  and  the  French  and  Walloons 
especially  had  suffered  cruel  treatment  under  this  pre- 
tence of  tithes.  The  opposition  proved  effectual,  and 
a  return  was  made  to  the  old  method  of  free-will  offer- 
ings, and  with  apparent  success. 

There  was  also  a  good  deal  of  human  nature  in  the 
little  settlement,  and  sometimes  it  involved  disputes 
that  were  difficult  to  arrange  amicably.  No  sooner 
had  this  matter  of  the  foresinger  been  settled  than 
public  excitement  was  raised  to  fever  heat  by  the 
refusal  of  several  leading  men  to  pay  the  prices  as- 
sessed by  the  pound-master.  Horses  belonging  to  Cor- 


MY  SUMMER  ACRE  489 

nelis  Jansen,  the  innkeeper,  to  Resolved  Waldron  and 
Adolph  Meyer,  oxen  that  were  the  property  of  David 
Demarest  and  Jean  le  Roy,  and  hogs  owned  by  Dela- 
vall  and  Roloefsen,  were  found  without  a  herder  "  upon 
the  bouwland  "  or  cropping  the  herbage  "  in  the  gar- 
den "  belonging  to  the  church,  and  straightway  were 
driven  to  the  pound.  The  delinquents  complained  that 
a  raid  had  been  made  upon  the  Sabbath  day,  and  de- 
clined to  pay  the  74  florins  exacted  from  them  by  way 
of  fines.  It  took  a  whole  day's  confab  at  the  village 
tavern,  amid  clouds  of  smoke  and  endless  pots  of  beer, 
to  adjudicate  the  matter,  and  at  the  end  the  bill  of 
the  worthy  tapster  was  fully  equal  to  the  amount  of 
fines  collected.  Here  is  a  copy  of  the  bill  paid  by  the 
town  : 

Cornells  Jansen,  Credit : 

Drank  at  the  settlement  of  the  fines,  the  2$th  day  of  FI.  Kr. 

October,  1671,  at  two  bouts 34  o 

Also  for  Mr.  Arents,  engaged  at  writing,  2  vans  beer  i  12 
Further,  after  the   settlement  was   concluded,  also 

drank  5  vans  beer  and  I  muts  rum 4  10 


40      2 

It  is  not  told  who  got  the  rum,  but  the  secretary  of 
the  conference  was  found  physically  equal  to  four 
quarts  of  beer,  the  vaan  being  two  quarts  in  measure 
and  the  mutsje  one  gill. 

As  a  boy  I  have  a  much  more  vivid  remembrance 
of  the  old  Episcopal  church  of  Harlem.  On  Ascension 
Day,  in  the  forties,  Trinity  School  made  its  annual 
excursion  to  this  ancient  Dutch  burgh,  and  some  of 
us  discovered  that  the  church  doors  were  unlocked, 
and  went  in.  It  was  a  wooden  building,  of  the  then 


49°  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

favorite  Grecian  style  of  architecture,  with  Doric  col- 
ums  in  front,  and  a  pepper-box  steeple.  Standing  in 
the  block  on  Fourth  Avenue,  between  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-seventh  and  One  Hundred  and  Twenty- 
eighth  streets,  it  commanded  in  its  earlier  days  a 
magnificent  view  of  Harlem  and  the  East  River,  the 
still  unoccupied  meadows  by  the  water-side,  the  hills 
beyond,  the  virgin  islands  beyond  the  mouth  of  the 
Harlem,  and  the  hills  that  rose  on  all  sides  in  the  dis- 
tance, all  as  yet  unmarked,  save  by  scattered  villas. 
In  the  days  when  I  first  visited  the  church  it  was  a 
rural  edifice,  in  a  rustic  village,  and  its  atmosphere  was 
one  of  delicious  repose.  I  recall  the  tables  of  the  Ten 
Commandments,  the  high  pulpit,  reached  by  stairways 
at  either  side,  the  ample  desk  and  little  mahogany 
"  altar,"  so  distinctive  of  the  days  when  ritualism  had 
not  as  yet  been  resurrected  by  the  Oxford  Tracts. 
But  what  most  attracted  my  notice  there  was  a  marble 
tablet  on  the  wall  to  the  memory  of  the  first  rector  of 
the  church,  George  L.  Hinton.  A  son  of  his,  a  boy  of 
the  same  name,  was  my  school-mate  then,  and,  no 
doubt,  stood  at  my  side  as  I  reverently  read  the  in- 
scription. The  son  had  been  orphaned  in  a  few  hours, 
the  father  and  mother  having  perished  by  cholera  on 
the  same  day  in  the  awful  visitation  of  1832. 

At  one  of  the  earliest  meetings  for  the  organization 
of  this  church,  Mr.  Charles  Henry  Hall  made  a  gift  of 
twelve  lots  on  condition  that  the  church  bought  six 
adjacent  lots,  and  he  was  also  one  of  the  largest  sub- 
scribers to  the  building  fund.  A  wealthy  merchant, 
he  had  his  home  on  the  site  of  the  Metropolitan 
Hotel,  occupying  the  entire  block,  with  fine  stables 
in  the  rear.  But  in  1829  he  moved  his  family  and 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  493 

his  magnificent  stud  of  horses  to  Harlem.  He  was 
one  of  the  first  vestrymen  of  the  church.  Among 
other  early  members  of  that  body  were  Lewis  Morris 
and  Abel  T.  Anderson,  prominent  Knickerbockers  ; 
A.  B.  Sands,  William  Randel,  Aaron  Clark,  Mayor  of 
New  York  from  1837  to  1839;  Edward  Prime,  the 
banker;  Robert  Ray,  John  A.  Sidell,  Archibald  Watt, 
District-attorney  Nathaniel  B.  Blount,  Colonel  James 
Monroe,  nephew  of  the  President  of  that  name ;  Will- 
iam G.  Wilmerding,  Jacob  Lorillard,  and  other  men  of 
note  living  on  the  East  River  and  on  the  Harlem  as 
far  up  as  High  Bridge,  where  Colonel  Monroe  then 
had  his  residence.  The  first  church  was  destroyed  by 
fire  in  1871.  It  was  rebuilt  on  the  same  site,  a  hand- 
some Gothic  edifice  of  stone,  but  recent  changes  of 
population  have  been  so  great  that  it  was  recently  de- 
cided to  move  the  church  site  to  the  corner  of  Fifth 
Avenue  and  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-seventh  Street, 
and  to  occupy  yet  another  and  larger  edifice. 

The  cholera  made  a  terrible  sweep  in  the  village 
of  Harlem  on  its  first  visitation,  in  1832,  and  in  many 
cases  the  sick  and  the  dead  were  alike  neglected.  It 
was  the  Asiatic  plague ;  it  slew  whole  households  in  a 
few  hours  ;  its  very  name  was  a  horror.  At  that  time 
the  engine-house  of  the  Harlem  fire  company,  No.  35, 
located  at  the  south-west  corner  of  Third  Avenue  and 
One  Hundred  and  Twentieth  Street,  a  few  feet  to  the 
west  of  Church  Lane,  was  used  for  a  temporary  morgue. 
Two  negro  men  had  charge  of  it,  and  they  were  com- 
pelled to  act  in  the  triple  capacity  of  grave-digger, 
sexton,  and  minister.  Scores  of  victims,  when  the 
plague  was  at  its  height,  were  daily  received  there, 
hastily  thrust  into  pine  boxes,  and  buried  in  the  church- 


494  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

yard  just  beyond.  I  have  heard  an  aged  physician  say 
that  it  was  rumored  afterwards  that  some  were  buried 
alive,  but  the  exigency  was  too  great  for  delays,  and 
even  the  ties  of  kindred  were  sacrificed  to  fear  of  the 
pestilence.  One  day  a  man  was  found  dead  under  the 
old  willow-tree  yet  standing  in  the  vacant  lot  on  the 
south  side  of  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-first  Street, 
opposite  the  church.  A  coroner's  jury  was  hastily 
empanelled,  viewed  the  body,  and  returned  a  verdict 
of  death  by  cholera.  In  a  week,  eleven  of  the  jury- 
men had  perished  by  the  epidemic,  and  the  one  ex- 
ception, marvellous  to  tell,  was  the  foreman,  Charles 
Henry  Hall,  who  subsequently  survived  all  his  official 
associates  of  the  Board  of  Health  on  their  visit  a  few 
days  later  to  the  city  quarantine. 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  495 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WRESTLING  WITH  HARLEM  GENEALOGIES — CHANGES  IN  OLD  DUTCH 
NAMES  —  THE  VILLAGE  PATENTEES  AND  THEIR  DESCENDANTS — 
GOVERNOR  NICOLLS  CHANGES  THE  NAME  TO  LANCASTER — THE 
ANCIENT  FERRY-MAN  AND  HIS  FEES 

THE  lapse  of  time,  I  find,  has  wrought  as  great 
havoc  with  the  patronymics  of  Hollanders  as  my 
boyish  lips  ever  did  with  the  names  of  Hebrew  wor- 
thies and  the  rivers  and  hills  of  Palestine.  Indeed,  it 
would  be  next  to  impossible  to  trace  some  of  the  old- 
er New  York  families  by  the  names  which  they  now 
bear.  Take  the  Rutgers  for  an  example.  Among 
the  colonists  who  sailed  for  New  Amsterdam  in  Octo- 
ber, 1636,  was  Rutger  Jacobsen  Van  Schoenderwerdt. 
The  last  name  indicates  that  the  future  settler  came 
from  a  pretty  Dutch  village  near  where  the  Van 
Rensselaers  had  their  country-seat.  Twenty -five 
years  later  he  had  become  owner  of  a  brewery  and 
a  sloop  that  traded  to  Albany,  and  was  a  magistrate 
and  "  the  Honorable  Rutger  Jacobsen  "  on  the  rec- 
ords of  Church  and  State.  His  only  son  was  known 
as  Harman  Rutgers,  a  private  in  the  doughty  burgh- 
er corps  of  New  Amsterdam,  afterwards  its  captain,  a 
brewer  like  his  father,  and  who  became  a  purchaser 
of  the  brewery  of  Isaac  de  Forest,  son  of  one  of  the 
earlier  pioneers  of  Harlem,  whose  dwelling-house  and 
brewery  were  on  the  north  side  of  Stone  Street,  near 
Whitehall,  where  the  well  that  supplied  water  for  the 


496  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

brew  is  said  still  to  be  visible.  He  was  a  sturdy  scion 
of  the  Holland  stock  and  devout  withal,  for  in  his 
family  Bible,  after  announcement  of  his  marriage,  he 
places  on  record  the  prayer  which  many  a  modern  cit- 
izen would  be  shamefaced  about  writing,  though  he 
might  hold  it  in  his  heart :  "  May  the  Lord  grant  us  a 
long  and  happy  life  together.  Amen."  But  then  he 
prayed  for  his  brewery,  too  :  "  May  the  Lord  bless  the 
work  of  our  hands!" 

Time  has  played  similar  tricks  with  some  of  the 
names  which  the  old  settlers  in  Harlem  brought  with 
them  from  the  father-land.  Claude  le  Maistre,  for 
instance,  an  exile  in  Holland  from  his  home  in  Artois, 
France,  was  the  ancestor  of  the  entire  Delamater  fam- 
ily in  this  country,  one  of  whose  descendants,  Schuyler 
Colfax,  born  in  a  house  yet  standing  in  North  Moore 
Street,  became  Vice-president  of  the  United  States. 
Joost  Van  Oblinus,  one  of  the  original  patentees,  and 
a  magistrate  of  worth  and  renown  in  the  annals  of  the 
old  city  and  village,  would  find  his  name  changed  to 
Oblienis  and  Oblenis,  and  finally  become  entirely  ex- 
tinct on  the  Island  of  Manhattan,  though  it  is  yet 
found  in  other  parts  of  the  State,  and  in  more  than 
one  case  has  oddly  taken,  through  some  strange  influ- 
ence of  association,  the  Irish  form  of  O'Blenis. 

There  were,  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  a  large  number  of  French  Hugenots  who  had 
become  refugees  for  religion's  sake,  in  Holland,  among 
them  the  original  members  to  whom  the  Corporation 
of  New  Amsterdam  issued  patents  for  lands  in  Har- 
lem. Captain  Joannes  Benson,  whose  descendants  left 
their  name  imprinted  on  the  mill  and  stream  which 
became  noted  in  village  annals,  was  an  exception,  and 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  497 

by  birth  a  Swede.  Into  his  family  the  McGowns  mar- 
ried, and  from  this  source,  also,  Eugene  Benson,  the 
artist,  now  of  Rome,  Italy,  traces  his  lineage.  Jan 
Dyckman,  ancestor  of  the  family  of  that  name  at 
Kingsbridge,  became  one  of  the  most  prosperous  and 
wealthiest  of  the  colonists,  and,  like  the  Brevoorts 
and  Montanyes — the  latter  claiming  their  common  an- 
cestry in  Abram  de  la  Montanye — left  many  descend- 
ants both  in  the  direct  and  collateral  branches,  as  did 
the  descendants  of  Daniel  Tourneur,  a  native  of  Pic- 
ardy,  in  France,  who  have  won  their  spurs  alike  in 
mercantile  life  and  in  society. 

This  very  week  in  which  I  write  has  seen  the  cele- 
bration of  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  ministry  of 
the  Rev.  Thomas  E.  Vermilye,  D.D.,the  venerable  sen- 
ior pastor  of  the  Collegiate  Reformed  Dutch  Church, 
and  he,  with  the  bankers  who  bear  that  name,  and 
nearly  all  who  bear  the  name  of  Vermilye  or  Ver- 
milyea,  trace  their  common  ancestry  to  Johannes 
Vermilye,  the  patentee  who  came  originally  from  one 
of  the  Walloon  towns  in  Artois.  One  of  the  most 
intelligent  and  the  most  noted  of  the  Harlem  colon- 
ists was  Resolved  Waldron,  a  printer  of  old  Am- 
sterdam and  a  burgher  of  New  Amsterdam,  whose 
descendants  were  many,  and  who  was  connected  lat- 
erally, through  his  issue,  with  many  of  the  leading 
families  of  the  colony.  His  name  has  remained  un- 
changed in  the  male  line.  But  perhaps  the  most  cu- 
rious change  of  all  to  be  noticed  in  this  connection 
is  that  which  gave  to  the  settlement  the  Kortright 
ancestry.  Cornelis  Jansen,  a  stout  trooper  in  the  fa- 
ther-land, who  bequeathed  to  his  eldest  son,  Johannes, 
"the  best  horse  and  the  best  saddle,  and  the  best 
33 


498  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

boots  and  the  best  pistols,  holsters,  carbine,  and  cut- 
lass," did  not  leave  him  any  patronymic,  but  Johan- 
nes was  at  first  called  Cornelissen,  and  took  the  name 
Kortright  when  he  had  acquired  the  farm  of  Cornelis 
Kortright  by  purchase  and  entered  upon  its  posses- 
sion. The  name  thus  taken  as  of  right  going  with  the 
land  was  faithfully  transmitted  to  his  descendants. 

A  week  or  two  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  a  val- 
ued friend  in  Harlem,  in  which  he  asked  whether  I 
had  ever  heard  that  the  village  was  once  called  Lan- 
caster or  New  Lancaster?  In  writing  back,  I  rather 
ridiculed  the  suggestion,  and  yet  I  lacked  discretion, 
for  he  was  right.  When  Richard  Nicolls  became 
governor  of  the  colony,  acting  under  his  Royal  High- 
ness and  eminent  rascality  the  Duke  of  York,  he  had 
sought  to  please  his  master  by  changing  the  name  of 
New  Amsterdam  to  New  York,  and  then  cast  his  eyes 
around  for  other  changes  which  should  obliterate,  so 
far  as  they  went,  the  memory  of  the  Dutch  occupa- 
tion. The  flourishing  little  settlement  of  New  Haar- 
lem caught  his  gaze,  and  forthwith  he  drew  up  a  pat- 
ent in  which  the  "freeholders  and  inhabitants  "  are 
notified  that  "the  said  town  shall  no  longer  be  called 
New  Haarlem,  but  shall  be  known  and  called  by  the 
name  of  Lancaster."  This  was  one  of  the  titles 
borne  by  his  master,  the  besotted  Duke  of  York,  to 
whose  pleasures  the  fertile  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  in 
England,  contributed  its  revenues.  The  people  of 
Harlem  were  at  first  astounded  and  then  indignant. 
They  determined  to  ignore  the  Governor's  order  and 
take  the  consequences.  Happily,  the  change  was  not 
insisted  upon,  and  it  appears  in  no  deeds  of  record, 
and  exists  only  in  the  above  patent,  which  is  ad- 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  $01 

dressed  to  the  "  inhabitants  of  Harlem,  alias  Lan- 
caster, upon  the  Island  of  Manhattan,"  and  in  the 
written  directions  for  drafting  it,  in  which  Governor 
Nicolls  presented  three  conditions  to  be  observed, 
viz.:  That  the  town  should  be  forever  thereafter 
called  by  the  name  of  Lancaster ;  that  one  or  more 
boats  should  be  built,  "  fit  for  a  ferry,"  and  that  the 
range  of  the  cattle  into  the  hills  and  forests  to  the 
west  of  the  village  should  be  extended.  The  latter 
two  conditions  the  village  burghers  were  very  glad  to 
grant,  but  the  former  they  stoutly  and  steadfastly  re- 
jected. 

The  settlement  had  been  originally  christened 
Nieuw  Haarlem,  by  Governor  Petrus  Stuyvesant,  who 
exercised  royal  prerogatives  in  such  matters.  There 
was  no  one  of  the  pioneers  who  came  from  Haarlem 
on  the  Sparen,  and  therefore  no  jealousies  could  be 
excited.  Perhaps  the  last  (and  best)  of  the  Dutch 
governors  fancied  there  was  a  resemblance  between 
the  two  localities — for  the  old  city  was  washed  by  a 
gentle  river  and  girt  about  with  groves  of  elms,  a  great 
beauty  in  a  land  where  forests  were  rare.  Quiet  as 
was  ancient  Haarlem,  its  history  was  heroic.  For  this 
reason  above  all  others  the  settlers  at  New  Haarlem 
were  determined  not  to  lose  the  inspiration  of  a  glori- 
ous name,  more  especially  not  at  the  bidding  of  the 
Duke  of  York,  whose  fidelity  to  the  reformed  faith  of 
England  was  more  than  suspected.  For  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  village  was,  in  the  first  place, 
a  city  of  refuge  for  those  who  had  suffered  from  re- 
ligious persecution — the  axe,  the  sword,  the  stake,  and 
the  dungeon  of  the  Inquisition.  Of  the  thirty -two 
heads  of  families  who  were  freeholders  in  1661,  eleven 


5O2  MY  SUMMER   ACRE 

were  French  Protestant  refugees  ;  four  were  Walloons 
of  French  birth  ;  four  were  Danes,  three  Swedes,  three 
of  German  extraction,  and  but  eight,  or  one-fourth 
of  the  whole  number,  were  Hollanders.  Many  of  the 
French  subsequently  removed  to  Staten  Island  and 
New  Rochelle,  and  the  farms  were  mostly  sold  to 
Hollanders,  rarely  to  Englishmen,  and  the  village 
thus  became  settled  down  to  Dutch  customs  and 
modes  of  thought,  and  thus  remained  to  the  early 
part  of  the  present  century. 

A  ferry  was  as  necessary  to  the  comfort  of  the  early 
Dutch  farmers  as  the  church  and  the  tavern.  The 
cattle- fairs  at  New  Amsterdam  had  brought  New 
England  horse-jockeys  to  that  city,  and  when  it  was 
discovered  that  the  cattle  from  that  region  were  pref- 
erable to  the  domestic  breed  from  Holland,  the  pat- 
entees at  Harlem  were  anxious  to  trade  with  them. 
The  ferry  was  leased  for  six  years  to  Johannes  Ver- 
veelen,  "  previded  hee  keepe  a  convenient  house  and 
lodging  for  passengers  att  Haarlem,  and  he  shell  have 
a  small  peece  of  land  on  Bronckside  (Morrisania)  and 
a  place  to  build  a  house  on,  which  he  must  cleare  and 
not  spoyle  the  meadow."  In  consideration  of  his 
building  these  houses,  "  the  governor  hath  freed  him 
from  paying  any  excise  for  what  wine  or  beere  he 
shall  retayle  for  one  year."  One  penny  in  silver  was 
the  ferriage  for  a  foot  traveller;  sevenpence  in  silver 
for  man  and  horse,  and  sixpence  for  a  horse  or  any 
other  animal.  As  carriages  and  wagons  were  not  in 
use,  no  charge  is  specified,  but  to  feed  a  horse  for  one 
day  or  night  "  with  hay  or  grasse "  cost  sixpence. 
Queerest  and  quaintest  of  the  charges  in  the  list  head- 
ed "Ye  Ferryman  and  His  Rates"  were  those  for 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  503 

hotel  accommodation.  They  read  :  "  For  lodging  any 
person,  8  pence  per  night,  in  case  they  have  a  bed 
with  sheets,  and  without  sheets,  2  pence  in  silver."  If 
one  may  be  privileged  to  read  between  these  lines,  it 
would  appear  that  "  the  great  unwashed  "  sometimes 
travelled  up  and  down  the  country  between  Boston 
and  New  Amsterdam,  always  to  the  horror  of  the 
good  Dutch  housewives,  who  carried  cleanliness  to 
such  a  pitch  of  conscience  that  they  went  gladly  to 
domestic  martyrdom  for  their  faith,  as  in  the  case  of 
one  portly  housewife  in  Harlem  who  scrubbed  her 
floor  until  it  broke  through  with  her  weight  and  land- 
ed her  in  the  cellar. 

The  ferry  had  been  in  operation  but  a  year  when 
honest  Martin  Verveelen  found  his  receipts  rapidly 
diminishing,  and  waking  from  his  slumbers  to  discern 
the  cause,  was  informed  that  the  horse -traders  from 
Connecticut  were  driving  their  cattle  across  the  ford 
at  Spuyten  Duyvil,  and  thus  escaping  the  dues  for 
ferriage.  Complaint  was  at  once  made  to  the  magis- 
trates, and  an  investigation  showed  that  "  one  John 
Barcker  had  passed  with  a  great  number  of  cattle  and 
horses/'  broke  down  fences  that  stood  in  the  way  and 
greatly  defrauded  the  revenues,  whereupon  he  was 
cast  in  exemplary  damages.  But  the  future  needed 
to  be  provided  against,  and  by  order  of  the  authorities 
Verveelen  removed  to  Papparmamin,  "  on  the  main 
side  "  of  Spuyten  Duyvil,  and  set  up  his  ferry  anew  at 
"  the  wading  place,"  exacting  tribute  of  all  who  passed 
that  way  except  "  men  going  or  coming  with  a  pack- 
ett  from  our  governor  of  New  Yorke,  or  coming  from 
the  governor  of  Connectecott,"  who  "shall  be  fferried 
free."  In  later  years  a  ferry  was  opened  at  Harlem 


504  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 

proper,  the  ferry-house  standing  at  the  foot  of  Church 
Lane,  where  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-sixth  Street 
touches  the  Harlem  River.  It  was  torn  down  in  1867, 
and,  with  one  exception,  was  the  last  relic  of  the  an- 
cient dorp  or  village. 

It  was  not  until  1673  that  a  monthly  mail  was  es- 
tablished between  New  York  and  Boston  by  way  of 
Harlem,  and  then  it  became  a  sensation  anticipated 
for  weeks  to  see  the  mounted  postman  rein  up  at  the 
village  tavern  with  his  "  portmantles  "  bursting  with 
letters,  and  packages  of  portables,  tarrying  only  long 
enough  to  bait  his  horse  and  refresh  his  inner  man 
and  then  dashing  away  through  mud  or  dust  towards 
distant  New  England.  A  century  later  the  Eastern 
Post-road  was  opened,  and  mail-coaches  went  through 
once  a  week,  pausing  for  refreshment  at  Harlem,  and 
then  turning  up  the  road  to  Kingsbridge  to  cross 
over  by  the  bridge.  Seventy-five  years  ago  the  mail- 
coaches  travelled  from  New  York  to  Boston  twice  a 
week,  and  only  fifty  years  ago  there  was  not  a  loco- 
motive running  on  the  Island  of  Manhattan.  The 
New  York  and  Harlem  Railway  Company  was  incor- 
porated in  1831,  and  two  years  later  had  horse-cars 
running  on  a  single  track  to  Murray  Hill.  But  it  was 
a  herculean  task  to  cut  through  the  Yorkville  tunnel, 
and  it  was  not  until  1840  that  the  first  steam  train  on 
the  road  was  put  in  operation  between  Thirty-second 
Street  and  One  Hundred  and  Twenty- fifth  Street. 
The  locomotive  first  used  on  this  road  exploded  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  1843,  an^  occasioned  a  great  loss 
of  life.  The  scene  of  the  catastrophe  was  at  Fourth 
Avenue  and  Fifteenth  Street.  The  temporary  struct- 
ure at  which  tickets  were  sold  in  Harlem  in  1840  was 


MY  SUMMER   ACRE  507 

a  shed  that  was  little  larger  than  an  election  booth, 
and  much  resembled  one. 

A  volume  might  be  written  concerning  the  early 
settlers  of  this  village  that  has  suddenly  become  a 
mighty  city  —  their  homely,  industrious  ways,  their 
uprightness  and  piety,  their  thrift,  their  pride  of  in- 
dependence, their  love  of  fireside  and  home.  I  have 
been  able  to  do  scant  justice  to  these  toilers  at  the 
foundations  of  the  city,  but  their  ghosts  have  been 
pleasant  companions  at  "  My  Summer  Acre,"  and  have 
been  more  real  to  me  than  those  who  pass  upon  the 
streets  and  are  of  to-day.  They  will  always  be  to  me 
as  the  scents  of  the  roses  and  honeysuckles  that  with- 
ered in  the  garden  and  on  the  porch,  imperishable  in 
memory. 


508  MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CRITICISED  BY  A  CROVV  —  FAREWELLS  TO  THE  OLD  HOUSE  BY  THE 
RIVER  —  CONVINCED  THAT  ONE  ACRE  IS  ENOUGH  —  AN  OLD-TIME 
HARLEM  LETTER— OUR  FAMILY  DINNER — THE  LAST  NIGHT  OF  "  MY 
SUMMER  ACRE." 

As  I  stood  upon  the  back  porch  this  morning  to 
drink  in  the  sunshine  just  dashed  with  frost,  I  heard 
the  last  of  the  woodpeckers  hammering  at  the  trunk 
of  the  old  cherry-tree  in  search  of  his  breakfast.  He 
did  not  seem  to  be  at  all  lonesome,  but  rather  was 
a  cheery  little  fellow  with  whom  business  had  driv- 
en sentiment  out  of  his  head,  or  else,  as  I  fancied, 
he  might  have  paused  and  twittered  out  a  few  bird 
thoughts  about  the  flight  of  all  the  rest  of  his  fellows 
in  feathers.  But  he  was  as  heedless  of  creatures  who 
cannot  fly  as  were  the  sea-gulls  that  were  skimming 
the  waters  of  Hell  Gate,  and  who,  as  they  at  times 
swung  slowly  up  and  then  darted  swiftly  down  through 
the  sunshine,  were  a  flash  of  silver  in  the  sky.  I  stood 
and  drew  in  once  more  the  full  beauty  of  the  scene : 
the  rushing  river  and  unquiet  Gate,  the  islands,  head- 
lands, and  black  bits  of  rock  amid  the  broken  waters, 
with  each  one  its  own  story  of  shipwreck  and  legend 
of  the  goblin  days  of  the  colony — the  brown  marshes, 
with  their  stretches  of  green  lawn  on  the  uplands  be- 
yond them  —  the  trees  that  bounded  the  horizon,  all 
bare  and  brown  when  seen  close  at  hand,  but  now 
transfigured  by  the  embrace  of  the  sun — and  I  drew  it 


MY    SUMMER   ACRE  509 

all  in,  every  fair  feature  of  this  wonderful  Venice  in 
America,  so  as  to  call  it  up  before  my  eyes  in  the  days 
to  come  when  I  should  talk  or  think  of  the  old  house 
by  the  river.  "  If  I  were  to  moralize  upon  this  scene," 
I  began,  half  aloud,  thinking  that  Nebuchadnezzar 
and  Martha  Washington,  who  sat  curled  up  in  quiet 
content  on  one  of  the  steps  at  my  feet,  were  my  only 
auditors.  "  But  you  know  that  you  never  do  anything 
else,  father,"  broke  in  mischievous  Mistress  Nell,  who 
had  come  quietly  forward  and  stood  at  my  elbow, 
"  and  the  coffee  is  getting  cold  and  I  am  hungry." 
Just  then  there  came  down  from  the  upper  sky  the 
strident  "  Ah  !  ah !"  of  a  crow  who  was  winging  his 
way  to  the  fishing-grounds  of  Long  Island,  and  who 
had  paused  for  a  moment  to  fling  down  his  mockery 
of  the  idea  that  age  could  moralize  or  youth  be  hun- 
gered, and  Nellie  and  I  turned  to  each  other  and 
smiled  at  the  wise  saying  of  the  bird. 

There  was  nothing  left  for  regret  in  the  lawn  and 
gardens  upon  which  we  turned  our  backs.  There  are 
bits  of  emerald  in  the  grass-plot,  but  for  the  most  part 
it  is  sere  and  brown.  The  syringa  and  lilac  bushes, 
moved  thereto  by  plentiful  rains  and  a  few  days  of 
late,  warm  sunshine,  have  sent  out  stray  leaves  of 
green,  as  if  they  were  dreaming  of  a  second  spring, 
and  a  few  marigolds  and  dandelions  yet  linger  defiant 
of  frost,  but  the  glory  of  the  flowers  has  departed.  In 
black  Diana's  realm  a  solitary  pumpkin,  a  very  apple 
of  her  eye,  revels  in  riotous  sunbeams,  and  a  few  dilap- 
idated and  disreputable  stalks  of  corn  keep  it  com- 
pany. The  rest  has  become  only  a  memory  that  we 
can  carry  away  with  us.  It  will  serve  us  hereafter  for 
epics  at  the  fireside.  There  is  not  one  of  us  who  will 


$10  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

forget  the  wealth  that  this  memorable  acre  poured  out 
at  our  feet.  "  If  I  were  to  moralize,"  I  had  remarked 
only  yesterday  in  strict  confidence  to  my  cats,  "  I 
would  say  that  you  will  dream  many  a  time  in  the 
coming  winter  of  the  delights  that  have  been  yours 
in  this  delectable  land,  and  whole  armies  of  edible  and 
well-digested  songsters  will  rise  from  their  graves  and 
flit  through'your  slumbers — but  I  forbear."  It  sounds 
magnanimous  to  close  in  this  way,  for,  as  I  have  tried 
to  impress  upon  Mistress  Nellie,  I  never  moralize. 
We  leave  the  gardens  to  the  toads  and  crickets,  for 
whom  the  builders,  when  they  come  next  spring  to 
remove  the  roof  that  has  sheltered  us  and  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  a  modern  brick  abomination  in  the 
shape  of  flats,  will  make  life  a  burden. 

The  coffee  was  all  right,  and  so  were  the  delicate 
pancakes,  in  whose  concoction  Diana  was  a  phenome- 
non ;  but  somehow  we  brought  little  appetite  to  our 
breakfasts.  If  we  were  but  sojourners  for  a  season  in 
the  tents  of  the  Knickerbockers  we  had  come  to  be 
fond  of  our  temporary  home,  and  none  of  us  liked  to 
say  to  the  other  in  words  that  this  was  the  last  morn- 
ing that  we  should  sit  down  together  and  have  the 
trees  above  our  heads  and  the  river  at  our  feet.  Even 
Master  Felix  had  caught  the  oppression  in  our  hearts, 
and  had  commenced  with,  "  I  say,  papa,  at  this  time 
to-morrow—  "  when  he  checked  himself,  looked  at  us 
with  a  sudden  pang  of  thought  and  gave  relief  to  his 
feelings  by  stooping  to  pinch  Nebuchadnezzar's  tail, 
drawing  from  that  patient  animal  such  a  howl  of  indig- 
nant protest  that  we  all  joined  in  the  boy's  hysterical 
laughter.  Master  Felix  turned  it  off  well,  and  inquired 
with  deep  affectation  of  interest  in  antiquities,  "  I  say 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE  511 

papa,  when  will  you  finish  about  Harlem  ?"  It  was  a 
relief  to  me  to  say  :  "  That  depends  on  the  future,  my 
son.  I  have  only  scratched  the  surface  of  the  ground 
that  is  rich  with  a  harvest  of  remembrance.  It  would 
take  a  whole  volume  to  do  justice  to  the  men  who 
from  first  to  last  have  made  the  marshes  and  wooded 
heights  of  Harlem  to  blossom  into  a  city.  Some  day 
you  may  set  yourself  to  the  task,  if  you  like."  Master 
Felix  smiled.  He  likes  best  to  hear  of  the  times 
when  the  Indians  had  their  October  camp  at  Hell 
Gate  Bay,  and  reared  the  piles  of  oyster-shells  which 
in  after-years  testified  to  their  fondness  for  the  deli- 
cious bivalve ;  or  of  the  days  when,  with  blunderbuss 
and  musquetoon,  the  slow  but  sagacious  Dutch  youth 
pursued  the  otter  and  rabbit  across  the  spoor  at  the 
Kills  and  on  to  Horn's  Hook. 

But  I  must  pause  here  to  speak  of  a  letter  which  I 
have  recently  unearthed  and  that  is  addressed  to  the 
"  Honorable,  Valiant,  and  Worthy  Lords,  my  Lords 
Petrus  Stuyvesant,  Director-general,  and  the  Council  of 
New  Netherlands."  It  is  written  by  a  worthy  voor- 
leeser  and  schepen,  one  of  the  founders  of  Harlem, 
who  had  sought  and  obtained  the  assistance  of  the 
council  in  wooing  for  his  second  wife  a  buxom  widow 
whose  husband  had  been  lost  at  sea.  Things  had  not 
gone  well  with  him  afterwards.  The  winters  had  been 
hard ;  his  pay  had  been  small ;  harvests  had  been 
niggardly,  and  age  had  added  to  his  troubles  until,  at 
sixty-eight,  he  had  incurred  reproof  from  the  council 
for  being  in  debt  upon  their  books.  It  was  a  primi- 
tive community,  in  which  unflinching  honesty  was 
the  rule,  and  incessant  labor  every  man's  lot.  The 
unfortunate  pioneer  received  the  rebuke  "  with  great 


512  MY    SUMMER   ACRE 

heart  grief,"  but  he  adds,  "not  that  my  conscience 
witnesses  to  me  that  I  am  fallen  into  the  same  by 
any  quis  cingit  ostio  that  I  may  have  practised,  hav- 
ing (without  boasting)  always  kept  my  household 
in  victuals  and  clothes  temperately  as  a  common 
burgher  here ;  but  the  excessive  dearth  of  all  things 
has  driven  me  insensibly  into  such  need  and  poverty 
as  that  never  in  the  sixty -eight  years  that  I  have 
lived,  so  great  distress  have  felt,  finding  myself  desti- 
tute of  all  means  to  provide  for  my  daily  bread  and 
provisions  for  the  winter."  Yet  his  courage  was  un- 
daunted. "  My  life,"  he  writes,  "is  in  Him  who  hath 
always  helped  me."  So  the  brave  old  man,  whose  do- 
main covered  my  little  summer  acre,  and  many  an- 
other that  was  then  equally  unprofitable,  girds  himself 
anew  for  the  fight,  and  comes  out  victor  in  the  end. 
These  were  the  heroes  and  this  the  rude  but  heroic 
work  that  redeemed  the  Island  of  Mahattan  to  civiliza- 
tion. Doubtless  their  spirit  survives  in  their  descend- 
ants, but  I  sometimes  wish  that  there  were  more  of 
the  ancient  courtesy  of  address  extant,  such  as  is 
shown  in  this  quaint  old  letter,  to  which  the  writer 
subscribes  himself,  "Your  Worthy  Honors'  humble 
and  willing  servant." 

One  of  the  surviving  and  immortal  wonders  of  the 
world  is  the  amount  of  luggage  and  trash  which  one 
small  family  can  accumulate  in  the  course  of  a  season. 
We  brought  nothing  when  we  came  here,  which  is  the 
way  we  put  it  to  ourselves,  but  it  is  certain  that  we 
shall  carry  a  mountain  away.  A  few  books  here,  a  few 
pictures  there,  an  easy  chair  or  two,  some  additional 
comforts,  then  the  furnishings  of  our  temporary  home 
kept  accumulating  at  the  expense  of  our  city  house, 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  515 

and  now  we  have  been  compelled  to  pack  up  amid 
many  groanings  of  heart  and  at  the  expense  of  a  day 
of  rare  discomfort.  It  would  not  be  so  bad  if  we  were 
glad  to  go,  but  in  our  hearts  we  know  that  we  dislike 
to  close  this  pleasant  chapter  in  the  book,  and  though 
we  say  to  each  other  that  it  will  be  a  relief  to  be 
back  in  our  old  haunts,  we  somehow  feel  an  attach- 
ment to  this  ancient  mansion  that  makes  the  very 
ghosts  of  the  men  and  women  who  dwelt  here  in  past 
centuries  seem  like  familiar  acquaintances.  This  break- 
ing-up  recalls  the  legend  of  the  enchanted  palace  in 
which  a  mortal  couple  were  allowed  to  dwell  in  un- 
interrupted bliss,  but  warned  {that  the  walls  would 
collapse  and  their  luxurious  contents  vanish  at  the 
first  farewell  that  should  be  spoken. 

The  old  colonel  was  our  guest  at  dinner,  and  Mistress 
Nellie  was  charming  as  she  waited  tenderly  upon 
him.  There  is  a  secret  between  them,  as  I  long  have 
known,  and  I  trusted  to  this  dinner  to  reveal  it,  but 
even  the  mince-pie  —  which  my  old  friend,  the  Presid- 
ing Bishop,  says  is  not  orthodox  until  "  Stir  Up  Sun- 
day," for  which  see  the  Collect  for  the  First  Sunday  in 
Advent — with  its  genial  cheer,  did  not  bring  it  to  the 
surface.  But  we  did  bravely,  none  the  less.  The  old 
colonel  was  in  his  best  mood  and  gave  us  rare  remi- 
niscences of  his  campaigns  in  Florida  against  the  re- 
doubtable "  Billy  Bowlegs  "  and  the  Seminoles,  those 
fierce  but  courtly  paladins  of  the  Everglades,  and  at 
the  request  of  Master  Felix,  and  on  condition  that  he 
will  put  it  into  words,  I  told  the  story  of  the  "  Two 
Brothers,"  from  whom  the  two  little  islands  off  Port 
Morris  in  the  East  River  are  named.  But  Diana 
capped  the  climax,  when  the  boy  insisted  that  she 


516  MY   SUMMER  ACRE 

should  tell  him  the  story  of  the  two  Hog's  Backs  and 
Captain  Kidd,  with  which  she  had  more  than  once 
entertained  him  in  the  kitchen.  "  'Deed  and  'deed, 
Mas'r  Felix,  I  don't  know  nuffin  'bout  dem  beast- 
esses  !"  she  cried  out  from  her  post  behind  Mistress 
Nellie's  chair.  "  Dat  fool  nigger  what's  courtin'  me 
done  tell  me  'bout  de  debbil  flying  away  wid  ole 
Dutchman  and  leavin'  him  straddle  de  Hog's  Back,  and 
he  wants  me  to  go  down  and  hear  de  old  ghostesses 
sizzlin'  on  de  Frying  Pan  Rock.  I'ste  glad  to  go  back 
to  folkses  any  way,  'cause  if  I  stay  here  any  longer  dat 
nigger  '11  want  me  to  dig  down  at  de  foot  ob  de  rock 
by  de  garden  shore  for  Cappen  Kidd's  gold."  And  so 
here  were  love  and  legend,  buried  gold  and  ancient 
fable,  as  the  cap-sheaf  of  "  My  Summer  Acre."  It  was 
marvellous. 

Just  then  something  still  more  wonderful  happened. 
My  daughter  left  her  place  at  the  table — the  twilight 
was  coming  on  then  apace,  but  we  would  not  have  the 
candles  lighted  yet  —  and  went  and  stood  by  the  old 
colonel,  placing  her  little  hand  in  his.  "  Father,"  she 
said,  with  a  playfulness  that  was  painful  to  me  because 
its  touch  of  solemnity,  uyou  have  been  teaching  me 
all  this  summer  that  one  acre  is  enough  for  happiness, 
and  I  have  learned  the  lesson  of  contentment  with  a 
small  lot  in  life."  I  did  not  dare  smile  at  her  little 
joke,  but  the  old  colonel  chuckled  and  said  under  his 
breath  :  "  A  centre  shot,  by  George  !"  Then  Nellie 
went  on,  with  a  tremor  in  her  voice  that  lent  added 
beauty  to  its  gentle  music :  "  Please  don't  laugh  at 
my  confession  of  conversion,  but  make  room  at  your 
table  to-day  for  the  man  whom  I  honor  and  revere  of 
all  the  world  next  to  you,  and  to  whom  I  have  given 


MY   SUMMER  ACRE  517 

my  heart."  I  was  speechless.  Nellie  came  and  knelt 
at  my  chair.  The  door  opened.  I  heard  a  smothered 
duet  of  laughter  which  convinced  me  that  Diana's 
lover  and  that  sable  spinster  were  in  the  plot,  and  then 
a  young  man  came  and  knelt  by  Nellie's  side,  whom  I 
knew  to  be  the  old  colonel's  grandson,  a  college  tu- 
tor and  preacher  in  Connecticut.  Now,  I  do  not  like 
preachers  outside  of  the  Established  Church,  and  I  am 
still  somewhat  of  a  Dutchman  in  regard  to  Yankees, 
but  what  was  a  man  of  peace  to  do  under  such  circum- 
stances? If  I  objected  that  he  was  not  rich  in  this 
world's  goods,  what  became  of  my  pet  theory  about  a 
single  acre  and  an  old-fashioned  home?  Besides,  I 
should  be  in  a  minority  of  one.  When  the  young  man 
came  in  at  the  door  behind  him  stalked  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, bristling  all  over  with  friendliness,  his  tail  borne 
high  in  air  as  a  sacred  oriflamme,  and  doing  all  that  a 
cat  could  do  to  give  the  young  couple  his  benediction. 
He  had  at  once  adopted  Nellie's  suitor  into  the  family, 
and  what  could  I  do  then  but  lift  Nellie  up  and  kiss 
her,  with  a  few  natural  tears,  as  I  placed  her  hand  in 
that  of  her  future  husband  and  bade  God  bless  them  ? 
It  was  Master  Felix  who  broke  the  silence  with  a  re- 
mark that  set  us  all  at  our  ease :  "  Nellie,  I'll  get  him 
to  teach  me  how  to  shoot  rabbits." 

The  old  colonel  departed  early,  but  it  was  nine 
o'clock  before  the  family  took  up  its  line  of  march  and 
left  the  Ark.  Like  our  predecessors  of  Noah's  time, 
we  went  out  in  pairs,  Diana  and  her  sable  escort,  both 
giggling  audibly  with  happiness,  in  advance.  Master 
Felix  and  I  came  next,  and  in  a  basket  on  his  arm 
were  Nebuchadnezzar  and  Martha  Washington,  growl- 
ing savagely.  At  the  gate  Nellie  and  Paul  lingered  for 


5i8 


MY   SUMMER   ACRE 


a  moment  in  the  shadow  of  the  tall  fir-tree.  "Come 
away/'  I  said  to  Master  Felix,  who  had  no  memories 
of  youth  to  recall  other  lingerings  in  unforgotten 
shadows.  The  quiet  night  came  down  and  wrapped 
us  up.  I  heard  only  the  chirp  of  a  cricket  among 
the  leaves  of  the  honeysuckle  vine  on»the  porch  that 
still  was  full  of  life  though  bronzed  with  frost. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  thought  irreverent,  but  in  that 
one  of  the  many  mansions  which  will  have  my  name 
upon  the  door-plate,  I  hope  to  be  as  happy  as  we  have 
been  in  "  My  Summer  Acre." 


TOMB    OF  WILLIAM   BRADFORD,   TRINITY   CHURCH   YARD 


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FOR 

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